

Class __:_ 

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Copyright^?-._i_i_ 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



















TOWN AND GOWN 

LYNN MONTROSS and 
LOIS SEYSTER MONTROSS 





TOWN AND GOWN 


BY 


LYNN MONTROSS 

'* 

and 


LOIS SEYSTER MONTROSS 

# 


5 

> > % 
) > 


NEW 



YORK 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 





COPYRIGHT, 1923, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




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tec 


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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY SMART SET COMPANY, INC. 


TOWN AND GOWN. I 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


FEB -8 ’23 

©C1A69C290 '\ ' 



FOREWORD 


Town and Gown is an attempt at collaboration in 
character and incident rather than in style. The epi¬ 
sodes “Peter Warshaw,” “The Faculty and the Creak¬ 
ing Shirt,” “Girls Who Pet,” “The Strangest Sere¬ 
nade” and “A Blind Date, Cousin Lottie and The 
Cat” were written by Lois Seyster Montross, the re¬ 
maining episodes by Lynn Montross. 




THE EPISODES 


\ 

PAGE 

i: * PETER WARSHAW.II 

II: * THE FACULTY AND THE CREAKING SHIRT . 67 

III! THE FUSSER.87 

IV: v GIRLS WHO PET.IO7 

VI YELLOW. 127 

wVi: DRYASDUST .141 

VII: THE FIRST MAN. 157 

VIII: UNITY, COHERENCE AND EMPHASIS . . . 171 

‘ IX: BASS DRUMS.185 

—- x: v'The strangest serenade.201 

XI: BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS. 227 

« 

" XII: <A BLIND DATE, COUSIN LOTTIE AND THE CAT . 243 

- XIII: WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB . . . ... . 263 












First Episode: 
PETER WARSHAW 


From the University Catalogue: 

“After completing the requirements 
of his course , the student may be¬ 
come a candidate for graduation 







V 






/ 




I: Peter IVarshaw 


i 

I N order to understand the later Peter War- 
shaw, it would be necessary to recall his 
great-great (paternal) grandfather, Nork 
Hutter, who was a Dutch artist, and his great- 
great-great (maternal) grandmother, who eloped 
from Dublin with an English adventurer. But 
to understand the Peter Warshaw who grum- 
blingly attended his own farewell party the night 
before he left Maybury for the State University 
one need only glance at his direct antecedents: old 
Doctor Warshaw and his wife seated comfortably 
in rockers enjoying the lap supper. The old 
“Doc” was telling an anecdote to Archie Gibbs 
on his right. It was not so much an anecdote as 
an interminable scientific treatise, and Archie was 
yawning through the references to homeopathy, 
gelsemium, belladonna and the New School. Doc 
Warshaw paused occasionally to sip his coffee 
with long, audible sloops. Mrs. Warshaw looked 
annoyed and exaggerated the politeness of her 

[ii 


TOWN AND GOWN 

own delicate sips, crooking out her little finger on 
the handle of the cup. 

She was a large woman who wore squeaking 
corsets and surprisingly small, high-heeled, patent 
leather slippers. Due to her efficient management 
the Foreign Missionary Society always made 
money at its annual suppers. She was known in 
Maybury as something of an artist, too, for she 
did china painting and made rose beads. She also 
coached the senior play. 

The doctor seldom accompanied her to any of 
her affairs, not even to the Presbyterian church 
where she sang a heavy and correct alto in the 
quartet. He was to be seen every evening be¬ 
tween seven and ten in his stuffy, dirty office 
on Front Street, reading by a smoky kerosene 
lamp. He read only newspapers and huge vol¬ 
umes on medicine. He surreptitiously chewed 
tobacco. His office was a drugstore, too, but he 
always advised his few customers against any of 
the patent medicines advertised in the windows. 
Most people went to the brilliantly lighted place 
up the street—“Foxy’s” newly remodeled drug¬ 
store and confectionery with its elaborate soda 
fountain. The Doc, absorbed in his study, was 
unconscious that Maybury had long ago left him 
behind, that it referred to him as an “old char¬ 
acter” and a “back number,” although it admitted 
his erudition. He still kept second hand books 
12] 


PETER WARSHAW 


for sale, lace valentines, bisque dolls, tarnished 
silver brushes, jewel boxes on faded plush. 

His battered, splint-bottom chair stood between 
a rusty Franklin stove and a three-legged table 
with the smoking lamp. Passers-by this evening 
on Front Street must have missed his gray head 
with its matted, square-cut beard, in the circle of 
lamplight—Mrs. Warshaw had actually suc¬ 
ceeded in keeping him home for Peter’s farewell 
party. 

And Peter—he stood between the piano and 
the chenille rope portieres of the double room 
balancing a coffee cup in one hand and holding a 
sandwich in the other. Like his father he was 
dressed carelessly; he wore a badly pressed blue 
flannel suit, a wide maroon tie that made his 
freckled face look redder and his stubborn hair 
more tawny. 

In those cycles of boyhood nicknames that arise 
suddenly and recede into oblivion he had been 
called “Skinny” for his thin legs and arms, 
“Monk” for his marked imitative ability and 
“Possum” to denote a certain deceptive sleepiness. 
And now he was just Pete Warshaw, who played 
a good game of pool and a better game of basket 
ball, who still dried dishes for his mother, took 
her to choir practice, smoked moodily with loiter¬ 
ers at Foxy’s, derided girls and would not learn 
to dance. He stubbornly refused to play for those 

[13 


TOWN AND GOWN 

who danced, to play any kind of ragtime. If his 
crowd (Boss Huff, Fat Carlson, Fish Gardner, 
Genevieve McCarthy, Elaine Ross) insisted on 
his playing they had to listen to endless minors, 
the uncomprehended chords of Grieg and Chopin. 
Maybury expected him to have talent, for his 
mother was referred to by visiting lecturers who 
stayed at the Warshaw home as “their cultured 
hostess”; and the town was not astonished at his 
good marks in school for it considered Doc War¬ 
shaw “deep.” No, he had not been notable in # 
Maybury. 

This night he found himself in an unaccustomed 
spotlight. He was going away to school. Gene¬ 
vieve McCarthy had attended normal school and 
Boss Huff had taken a business course in 
Naponee, but Peter Warshaw was the first to be 
sent to the State University from Maybury. 

“Presume,” said Fish Gardner’s father, “that 
Warshaw’ll make a doctor out of Pete. Seems to 
me a year in Chicago with what Pete knows al¬ 
ready would have been enough.” 

“Well, he ain’t going to take up medicine right 
away,” said Archie Gibbs. “Anyhow the Doc 
said he wasn’t. He is going down to the Univer¬ 
sity to find out what he wants to do. Mighty ex¬ 
pensive findin’ out, if you ask me!” 

Peter, eating sandwiches with obvious appetite, 
was oblivious to the fact that he was noteworthy 
14 ] 


PETER WARSHAW 


and that his mother was confiding to Mrs. Huff: 

“County Superintendent Morrissey told us 
Peter was really unusual and he ought to go to the 
State University. And Father said he felt that 
right along. . . . Wednesday is registration . . ., 
we got him a new wardrobe trunk. He goes on 
that 9:23 tomorrow. I had a terrible time pack¬ 
ing—he’s so helpless, just like his father. . . . 
Honestly, Mrs. Huff, it’s worth all the sacrifices 
to give them these opportunities. We can’t help 
but expect big things of Peter with such a won¬ 
derful chance.” 


II 

Doc Warshaw, in a night shirt and his old 
green bathrobe was rummaging in the closet for 
the coat-hanger his wife had said he must find 
for his best suit. She was standing by the walnut 
dresser, twisting up her hair on kid curlers. In 
her long nightgown with the square neck and 
scalloped sleeves she was no longer the dignified 
and correct Mrs. T. D. Warshaw—she was a 
plump, middle-aged woman and there were wor¬ 
ried lines around her eyes. 

“It seems queer that Peter’s going tomorrow. 
I simply can’t realize it. I hope he finds a nice 
room. What do you suppose rooms cost down 
there?” 


[15 


TOWN AND GOWN 

Doc Warshaw sat on the bed, absently fitting 
the suit over the hanger. 

“Why, not more than about twenty a month, 
I’d say, Nellie. Still worrying for fear he won’t 
have enough money?” 

“We- 11 —no—” She touched her finger with 
her tongue and rubbed the finger along a short 
strand of hair. “If he doesn’t—” she rolled the 
strand around a curler, “—there’s the new oats 
from the farm—” she pressed down the ends of 
the curler emphatically, “—I hope we get a good 
price for ’em.” 

Doc Warshaw had placed the suit carelessly on 
a chair and was climbing with tired grunts into 
the high bed. His wife hung his suit in the closet 
without remonstrating. 

“Peter’s always been a good boy,” she said. 

“Yep. . . . Time is it?” 

“After twelve. . . . Did you put the cat in the 
basement?” She was raising the window. “I 
heard the Hufif boy has a good position in Chicago 
as an office manager. . . . Peter told me tonight 
he wanted to take up business. Would you care 
if he gave up being a doctor?” 

“Nope, wouldn’t care,” said the Doc, yawning. 
“Not if he was a bully good business man. And 
Peter will be once he sets himself at it.” 

In the dark she found her side of the bed and 
clambered in with surprising agility. 

16] 


PETER WARSHAW 

“Yes, Peter will be. He will beshe echoed, 
vague with sleepiness. They both turned over. 
In the sudden silence the clock ticked loudly. 

Ill 

On the 7:23 train Peter was rapidly nearing 
the State University. Between his eyes and the 
page of his magazine a hazy panorama of May- 
bury faces still flickered: Archie Gibbs, Mrs. 
Huff, Fish Gardner, his mother smiling with ex¬ 
aggerated cheerfulness, his father stroking his 
beard and reading a timetable. 

Tonight at supper they would say, “Well, he’s 
registered now. He’s got his room now.” 

They had no idea what the State University 
would be like—but neither had Peter. He had 
never been down there and if he pictured it his 
imagination employed scenes from books he had 
read: convivial men students strolling arm-in-arm 
along shady paths, singing; men in night shirts 
jigging on a tin roof by moonlight (a reminis¬ 
cence of Old Siwash stories) ; a group of low¬ 
voiced men discussing campus politics gravely 
over pipes and steins (remembering Stover At 
Yale ) ; an alumni banquet at which the millionaire 
toastmaster toasted a little, shabby, insignificant 
man for his courage in sickness and poverty (The 
Man In The Shadow ). 


[ 1 7 


TOWN AND GOWN 

. . . Across the aisle four fellows were playing 
cards. A certain brush to their hair, something 
about their collars, made him sure they were Uni¬ 
versity men. Juniors—seniors, maybe. He 
caught snatches— 

"Going to sign up that pipe with old Gabler I 
told you about ?” 

"—old Dyrcks’ course’s soft enough to suit 
me.” 

"—take it from me, Protheroe, old Irene will 
go D. G. Damned good material!” 

"—who’s this frosh from Clinton that broke 
the two-twenty? I heard the A. T. O.’s had him 
all lined up.” 

"—good as pledged now.” 

"—b’lie me, old Pewter Hughes’ll show up 
Chi this year! Goddam good halfback.” 

They looked younger than he had supposed 
upper classmen would look. They hadn’t that 
dignity he’d expected. Where was the difference 
between them and Fish Gardner and Fat Carlson 
and Boss Huff? But he envied them their glib 
references to the "old school”—everything was 
"old,” he noted, from professors to flappers. 

There were two girls seating themselves ahead 
of him. Co-eds, he supposed. They wore low- 
heeled, strap slippers, chiffon silk stockings, fur 
coats and close hats over bobbed hair. Where 
18] 



PETER WARSHAW 


was the difference between them and Genevieve 
McCarthy or Elaine Ross ? 

Now and then they exchanged remarks with 
the group across the aisle: 

“—say, Andy, did you hear the dirt about Patsy 
Perdue?” 

“—no, but I heard the dirt on your house, Dot. 
Faking telegrams to rushees!” 

“—back again are you, Dot? This makes six 
years, huh, Dot?” 

“—hi, Dot, how many weeks ahead are y’ dated 
up?” 

The girl called Dot was poised and sophisti¬ 
cated. Her voice was husky and somewhat 
strident. 

Turning again to his magazine he tried to for¬ 
get his shut-out feeling. A queer emotion of dis¬ 
comfort was rising in him—a worried feeling 
such as he had in the night once, waking and re¬ 
membering a ten dollar bill he had lost. He could 
scarcely analyze it for he was unused to self¬ 
dissection. It seemed to have something to do 
with the snatches of talk he'd overheard—a fear 
of being surrounded by people like these who 
talked this way—a guilty dread that he would 
never be able to hold his ground—to understand 
the enigmas of “D. G.” and “A. T. O.”—to be 
properly flippant and have that indefinable some¬ 
thing in his grooming—that he would be the only 

[19 


TOWN AND GOWN 


freshman—the only unknown—the only person 
looking through the fence at the breath-taking 
game inside. 

IV 

Peter was one of a huge phalanx of students 
waiting to get into University Hall. Although he 
was late in starting to register he found that the 
crowds were late too. He heard grumbling all 
about him: juniors roundly damning the univer¬ 
sity officials; girls explaining that it was always 
this way, they were nearly dead, darn it; seniors 
advising freshmen how to avoid red tape and bluff 
through by faking signatures of instructors on 
class cards. 

Peter stood silent, gripping his announcement 
of courses. When the mob at last surged for¬ 
ward he was jostled up stone steps and into the 
old, shabby corridors of the hall. He saw desks 
at which pretty, important girls presided, with 
stacks of pink and blue cards before them. White 
placards posted above doors designated the for¬ 
midable lairs of advisers. Peter was red-faced 
and almost tremulous by the time he secured his 
long folding blank and stood before his adviser, 
Mr. Whitney, to be aided in making out his “trial 
study list/’ His timidity was dispelled. Whitney 
was young, with thick, waving black hair parted 
in the middle; he had mild brown eyes and a small 
20 ] 


PETER WARSHAW 


black mustache. Peter sat on the edge of a chair 
beside his desk and said “Yes, sir/’ and “No, sir,” 
at the proper intervals. 

“There, Mr.—ah—Warshaw—” The instruc¬ 
tor was through. “Have that approved by Dean 
Fannicott—third floor of this building—at your 
left. All right, next.” 

Their eyes met and Whitney smiled. Peter 
went away feeling warm and friendly. He hoped 
he would see Whitney often. On the third floor 
in Fannicott’s office his timidity returned. The 
assistant dean of the department of English 
seemed to have a bad cold and to hold Peter 
somehow responsible. As he read Peter’s list of 
studies, he coughed, unfolded his handkerchief, 
took a cough-drop. He started to sign his initials, 
paused and shoved the blank at Peter. 

“That won’t do,” he said. “Your military drill 
will conflict with that chemistry laboratory on 
Fridays. Mr. Whitney should have known that. 
Have him change it and bring it to me again.” 

At last Peter sat in the draughty hall in a chair 
with a broad arm, copying his approved study list 
carefully. He realized all at once that he was not 
in the College of Commerce at all but in Liberal 
Arts and Sciences. . . . Funny he hadn’t known 
—he hadn’t understood. And what must he do to 
change? He would have to go back to Fannicott 
and the dean would look disgusted at his im- 

[21 


TOWN AND GOWN 


becility. He was an imbecile! The blood rushed 
to his face and he chewed his fountain pen cap 
fiercely. Rather than face Fannicott for the third 
time he decided to keep on in the College of Liber¬ 
al Arts and Sciences. He wanted only to leave 

* 

this confused clatter. 

Through the door he saw the white walks wind¬ 
ing across smooth, rolling green, the broad, 
mottled foliage of cannas, the oaks yielding 
golden leaves reluctantly to the insistent Autumn. 
Sunlight crept with little, wavering steps over 
the grass . . . next to him a girl was writing 
“Elizabeth Udell” on the long series of perforated 
slips. She was scribbling “None” where it said 
“Church Preference” and leaving a blank after 
“Father’s Occupation.” 

The passing and repassing of students was diz¬ 
zying. Fur-coated co-eds with rouged cheeks; 
men wearing bone-rimmed glasses; an instructor 
or two hurrying by with green bags in hand; 
Chinese students in groups; two colored girls, 
hesitant and self-effacing; couples who sauntered, 
gayly glancing about for acquaintances; the girl 
he had heard called “Dot” accompanied by two 
men; and freshmen like himself, bewildered, self- 
conscious, frowning over the brown-covered an¬ 
nouncement of courses. 

His registration completed, he walked south 
toward the auditorium. He faced a greensward 
22] 


PETER WARSHAW 

that had once been a waving sea of prairie grass 
where the hoofs of buffaloes pounded. Austere 
buildings, dull-red with white pillars, against a 
blue satin sky piled with lustrous clouds. . . . He 
wanted to throw himself on his back in the grass 
and, looking at that sky, forget how very much he 
hated everything. 


V 

Peter sat at a baize-topped study table beneath 
a green-shaded electric bulb. The room with its 
affronting dressers, its brass bed and faded rug 
seemed cozy now with a familiar litter of coats 
and shoes, trunks covered with Indian rugs, walls 
thumb-tacked with penciled cartoons and photo¬ 
graphs of women; a tennis racket, a cocky plaid 
bag of golf sticks; a huge, smirking papier mache 
god in the corner. The room, Jimmy Tradinick 
had said, was “so-so” but after his arrangements 
he pronounced it “not so worse.” The golf sticks, 
the Navajo rugs, the steamer trunk, the cartoons, 
the photographs, and the papier mache god were 
his. The new wardrobe trunk, the tennis racket, 
the one apologetic pennant were Peter's. 

After waiting doggedly in the Y. M. C. A. for 
hours on being informed there were no vacant 
rooms on the campus, Peter heard Tradinick ask¬ 
ing for a roommate. Fortunately Jimmy had 

[23 


TOWN AND GOWN 


found Peter satisfactory and here they were. 
Peter thought himself immensely lucky. 

He discovered his roommate to be something 
between a sophomore and a junior, Jimmy con¬ 
fessed he didn't know which. He confessed all 
sorts of things on their walk to the rooming 
house. He drawled much careless speech tagged 
with “eh,” “y’see,” “do y’ree-lly,” and “as t’were.” 
He had been everywhere, he said; he was bored. 
He thought the University stupid. He quarreled 
with his fraternity brothers and wouldn’t live 
with them. 

“You’ll be sick of me in a week,” he warned 
Peter. 

Tonight, while Peter surveyed his new books 
and his ream of unsullied note paper, he felt at 
peace. He smoked a cigarette and gazed drowsily 
at the green-shaded light while Jimmy talked. 

Jimmy lay on the bed in one-half of his paja¬ 
mas, his brown legs stretched out at length. He 
had a habit of going about in startling unattire 
and of resting to smoke and talk in the middle of 
his searches for misplaced clothes. 

“I can tell y’a lot of things about this univer¬ 
sity,” he was saying, “that you’d only learn by 
devilish moil an’ toil, my boy.” He called every¬ 
one “my boy”—it was rumored that he had even 
said it to the dean of men—and he was fond, too, 
24] 


PETER WARSHAW 

of referring sadly to all forms of labor as “moil 
an’ toiL ,, 

“You don’t want to take it all so damn seriously. 
Youth is always fed a lot of bunkum and stinkum 
about 'making the most of golden opportunities.’ 
The moralists get all that up to keep other people 
from enjoying themselves. Take these deans and 
doctors and professors and what-nots—they’ll 
throw y’ the gaff. Sure. They’re paid for it. 
But you notice it’s the dumb-bell flappers they 
award the golden ‘A’s.’ Takes the old boys to 
fall for the cuties.” He lit another cigarette. 

“They’re made of the same stuff, even as you 
and I, my boy. Give ’em a cuspidor and a package 
of fine cut and they’ll react like your father an’ 
mine, as ’twere. . . . Take these prominent birds 
who put the stew in student activities—Andy Pro- 
theroe and Pewter Hughes—asses and jelly 
beans! Where do they get with their toilin’ an’ 
moilin’. . . . Ah—a jug of wine, a book of verse, 
and thou—our old Friend Omar has it right, 
eh?” 

He stretched and was silent. 

Peter smiled contentedly and looked at the 
student lamp. A few disconnected words—cus¬ 
pidor, asses, jelly beans, a jug of wine—echoed 
richly in his ears. 


[25 


TOWN AND GOWN 


VI 

The Peter Warshaw who returned to Maybury 
after one year of University life was a Peter of 
well-pressed clothes, unfamiliar cosmetics and a 
strange, new, lounging gait. Under Jimmy Tradi- 
nick’s tutelage he had acquired no small non¬ 
chalance and a modicum of social presence. He 
no longer blushed and stammered if spoken to by 
a girl and he played ragtime now for dancers al¬ 
though he did not dance himself. His mother 
noted most of these things with approval. 

She had a little talk with him the morning after 
his arrival. He was seated at the round dining 
table eating a late breakfast. She hurried back 
and forth from the kitchen balancing new batches 
of hot pancakes on a long turner. He dotted them 
with butter and drowned them in maple syrup. 
He placed his knife on the side of his plate now 
instead of putting it on the table cloth. 

“Honestly, Peter,” said his mother, “Univer¬ 
sity has been a fine thing for you all around, 
hasn’t it?” She stood behind him and gave a few 
smoothing pats to his hair. 

“Yeh,” said Peter, grinning. “Y’ought to see 
old Tradinick, though. By gosh, he’s a card! 
He’s been everywhere an’ he’s bored. Talk! 
That fellow can talk an arm off you. Gee, 
26] 


PETER WARSHAW 

Mother, I never had an idea there were fellows 
like that.” 

She had heard all this before in letters and on 
his brief visits home but she smiled with cleverly 
feigned interest. 

“I know Td like him. Why don’t you have him 
come to see you, some time?” 

“Oh, well—y’see, Tradinick has lots of money 
—he’d hardly want to waste his time in a cheap 
joint like this burg. D’y’think?” 

“N-no—maybe not. I’m sure we always try 
to be nice to your friends.” She was a little awed 
by this Jimmy with the “lots of money.” But she 
was pleased that Peter should “be in with” people 
like that. She wanted Peter to realize the cheap¬ 
ness and smallness of Maybury. She had visions 
of him returning from Chicago or New York in 
an English ulster and a velour hat, carrying a 
sleek bag—very dignified, a bit pompous and yet 
extremely gracious, sweeping her into his arms 
with the exclamation, “Little mother!” then sit¬ 
ting down to outline to her the colossal schemes 
of his big business in the East. 

Just yet he was still Peter, freckled, red-haired, 
ingenuous—underneath all his new politeness and 
eager boasting. She had been amused and 
pleased when he arose every time she entered the 
room that first night, vain of this youthful horn- 

[27 



TOWN AND GOWN 

age before the Doc, sprawled on the couch with 
stockinged feet. 

The doctor came in while Peter was talking. 
Peter had lit a cigarette and his mother was ig¬ 
noring the fact that she never used to permit his 
smoking in the house. 

“Yeh, Mother/' he was saying, “I sure get by 
better than I used to. Honest, when I first went 
there the place seemed so darn big—not the town, 
the town is horrible—but the campus an’ all that. 
Y’ought t’see the You’ll Come Inn—Foxy’s is a 
joke to it—slick little booths and parchment 
shades and a bird walking up and down playing 
the violin. Jimmy and I hang out there a lot.” 

Doctor Warshaw sat down near the door and 
stroked his beard. 

‘Til tell you who runs the school—Andy Pro- 
theroe and Pewter Hughes—big men! Tradinick 
says they’re not but, Lord, you can’t tell by 
Jimmy! He damns everything from A to Z. 
‘Stinkum and bunkum!’ he says, you’d die to hear 
him. He’s in Mexico this summer. I’m keen to 
hear the line he’ll come back with. Gosh, I’ll be 
bored here this summer! Hardly wait for next 
fall.” 

He blew smoke from his nostrils slowly. 
“After all,” he said, “you do learn a lot of worth¬ 
while things down there. Not from your books, 
y’know, but from fellows like Pewter Hughes and 
28] 


PETER WARSHAW 

Tradinick—I met Pewter one night down at 
You’ll Come Inn—the best halfback we ever had. 
But you take Jimmy now—contact with a man like 
that,” he was very earnest; he let his cigarette go 
out, “say, I even sort of like verse now. He can 
reel off Kipling and Service and Omar Khayyam 
by the yard. Listen to this, Mother:—” He 
pulled out a leather book, pocket-size, and read 
half-aloud: 

A jug of Wine, a book of Verse and Thou 

Beside me, singing in the Wilderness, 

O, Wilderness were Paradise enow! 

. . . Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring 

Your winter garment of Repentance fling— 

He was reading to himself now, his elbows 
propped on the table. 

Mrs. Warshaw took his empty plate. Doctor 
Warshaw followed her into the kitchen. 

“Look here, Nellie,” he said, frowning, “who 
are these young hoodlums and roustabouts he 
speaks of? These Jimmies and Pooh-pooh 
Hughes-es and Trajedicks? And this stuff he 
reads—jugs of wine!” He blew his nose vio¬ 
lently. 

“Sh-sh!” said Mrs. Warshaw. “You don’t 
understand, Father. He—” 

“And all this smoking! He’ll ruin his lungs if 
he don’t take care.” 

[29 



TOWN AND GOWN 


“That was his first this morning,” she de¬ 
fended. “Don’t be so old fashioned!” 

He went out, sulkily slamming the door. 

In the dining room she hastened to warn Peter: 
“Don’t talk that way before your father,” she 
whispered mysteriously. “He doesn’t understand 
like I do. I like to hear all about your friends. 
You must tell me everything. But your father is 
getting—well, a little old,—he sits in that dirty 
old office by himself too much. . . . And don’t 
smoke before him, Peter, at least not through 
your nose.” 

One of the first things he confided to Jimmy 
back in their old room on Mulberry Street was 
his new sophistication in regard to Maybury. 
From a sense of loyalty he put the truth in the 
plural— “They don’t want you to act like you 
really are down in a hick town like that, Tradi- 
nick. Ever notice? If you mention Khayyam or 
Kipling to’m they think you’re throwing on the 
dog. By gosh, they think old Omar was some 
kind of a stew hound. They think the Wine in 
his verse is—” 

Jimmy laughed uproariously, slapped Peter on 
the back and yelled, “Wine, wine, wine! Yea! 
J’ai beancoup de vin rouge, moi!” 

He took bottles of port and sherry and a flask 
of whiskey from his suitcase. He plied Peter 
with them and suddenly Peter felt his stomach 

30] 


PETER WARSHAW 


burning gorgeously and the room was a haze. 
He leaned out of the window gazing at the lights 
and flashing cars. 

The yelling and singing of the returned stu¬ 
dents fired him with a desire to dance a war dance, 
shoot off a gun, burn up Uni Hall, juggle shining, 
golden balls madly, standing tilted on the Obser¬ 
vatory. He had often wondered what a fellow 
could do when he felt crazy, wild with excitement, 
bursting out of himself. It was this then—yell¬ 
ing insanely with Jimmy, laughing hysterically, 
drinking this stuff. He had been too long in May- 
bury, nowhere to go, nobody he could really 
talk to. 

He beat a clashing tom-tom with two tin to¬ 
bacco cans while Jimmy did an Egyptian dance 
clad in a sheet. 

It was delicious to be back. 

VII 

The excellent private stock that Jimmy Tradi- 
nick had brought back in his suitcase healed all 
the breaches between him and his brotherhood. 
He was less often in the room now and more 
often at the big gray fraternity house set far 
back in The Row, its gables and old English doors 
half hidden by poplars and thickets of barberry. 

Peter was not lonely, however, for he was mak- 

[3i 


TOWN AND GOWN 


ing new friends. He was on a sophomore com¬ 
mittee—he was learning how to “get by”! He 
wanted to be marked for his “pep.” He was try¬ 
ing to make the enthusiasm of his return become 
part of him. He practiced a new bold air with 
self-conscious vim. . . . Although Jimmy evinced 
no interest in Peter’s sophomoric gambolling he 
must have approved it for he said one day: 

“Like to come over to the house for dinner to¬ 
night, m’ boy?” 

“Sure,” said Peter, cocking an alert eye at him 
over the top of a book. 

“Check. Make it snappy.” Jimmy’s voice was 
casual but his grin was significant. 

As they sauntered up the long cobblestone path 
to the really beautiful old house, the men standing 
about on the terrace, smoking and talking, looked 
at Peter with interest. He tried to walk without 
self-consciousness, making a great pretense of 
chatting gayly with Tradinick. He wished Ross 
Boyle would come by and see him walking on this 
sanctified ground. . . . He wished he had worn 
his brown tie instead of this thing. His collar was 
a trifle wide, he thought. Would that half inch of 
superfluous collar be counted against him? He 
felt very close now to the pulse of the university 
—this was the real thing! 

And here was he, insignificant Peter Warshaw 
of Maybury shaking hands with Ted Ireland, the 

32] 


PETER WARSHAW 

editor of this year’s annual! Peter tried to men¬ 
tion casually a conversation he had had with 
Pewter Hughes and he thought Jimmy’s eyes 
twinkled understanding^. 

At dinner he was pleased to be placed next to 
young Mr. Whitney, a member in facilitate. . . . 
Oh, he was getting on, talking this way with an 
instructor. That was what a fraternity did for 
you. 

He glanced about the big dining room—you 
went down a few steps to enter it—the floor was 
tiled with dull red bricks. There were logs blaz¬ 
ing in the open grate, silver loving cups gleaming 
in the firelight. Waiters came and went through 
a swinging door. One of the waiters was Larsen, 
of Peter’s chemistry laboratory. Peter avoided 
his glance. . . . The picture of himself at home, 
eating pancakes recurred to him. . . . His grape¬ 
fruit was spiked. . . . He used his silver care¬ 
fully, correctly, but noted with alarm that the 
others kept their napkins folded in half. 

When the men sang between courses he leaned 
back and gazed into the fire, feeling warm, well- 
fed, luxurious. He realized how starved he’d 
been for it all. This was real—the real thing at 
last! 

Later he hated the strain of his frequent trips 
with Jimmy to the A. O. G. house, and it was 
worse when Ted Ireland called for him in a daz- 

[33 


TOWN AND GOWN 


zling car. . . . Then one night, Ted came in un¬ 
expectedly and for a nerve-racking fifteen minutes 
Ted and Peter and Jimmy sat about talking of 
nothings. Peter knew the “bid” was to be his. 
When they asked him he assumed no artificial 
pose of not wanting it. He did want it and he 
was fiercely afraid they might never ask him 
again. 

“Wh-why, yes, I think I will—would,” he 
gulped in answer to Ted’s grave question. They 
liked the unabashed delight that shone in his 
brown eyes. 

They shook his hands in clasps that hurt, curs¬ 
ing him and laughing. They drank port and more 
port and Peter was the recipient of every maudlin 
toast. They all fell over on the bed at last, dully 
realizing that it had been some important occa¬ 
sion, they couldn’t remember what. “Porfant 
occasion,” chortled Jimmy, “Hah! Hah! Hah!” 
They slept. 

Peter sat up in the middle of the night. He 
could hear the campus chimes droning three 
o’clock. The light was still burning. Ted lay at 
the foot of the bed, his blonde hair rumpled above 
his pale face. Jimmy’s arm was trailing on the 

floor. Peter arranged it quietly.Then he 

remembered and glanced down at his lapel. There 
it shone, very small but significant. He took ft 
34 ] 


PETER WARSHAW 


out, read the letters, A. O. G., polished it with his 
thumb and put it back in his buttonhole. 


VIII 

Simultaneously with his initiation into A. O. G., 
Peter was initiated into the society of women, 
the slipperiness of dance floors. He learned to 
speak with sly innuendo of a “mean woman” and 
a “wicked party.” He and Jimmy, still rooming 
together, lived now at the A. O. G. house. In¬ 
stead of lounging about the terrace and riding 
in Ted's dazzling car as Peter had pictured him¬ 
self doing he was more often consigned to dismal 
tasks in the company of the colored porter in the 
dark posterior regions of the house. He went 
on errands for the seniors and raked the lawns. 
The cold glances of the upper-classmen filled him 
with discomfort. Ted Ireland evinced a new 
sternness. 

“Look here,” he had said bluntly after that 
night in the Mulberry Street room, “I ought to be 
shot for getting piped up with a pledge and I don’t 
want to hear of you pulling that stuff again. 
Don’t hang around with our friend James so 
goddam much either.” 

Peter settled into a dreary groove of menial , 
slavery and stiffly polite meals broken up by the 
occasional dances he hated. He struggled to 

[35 


TOWN AND GOWN 


maintain the artificial self that had won him his 
jeweled pin. He thought he ought to be that 
Peter because it made his mother so proud. Her 
letters described how she told Mrs. Huff and 
Mrs. Gardner of his fraternity life, his .rich 
friends, and the dances he attended in a dress 
suit. 

He was vaguely troubled by the doubled ex¬ 
penses his parents were perhaps struggling to 
pay. But they never alluded to their difficulties. 

Spring brought him new, undefined desires—he 
took long walks on the east campus and in the 
cemetery on the edge of town; but his thoughts 
on these walks were only dull echoes of his first 
reaction to college: “God, how I hate it, God!” 
He had spent two years in laboring toward “the 
real thing.” He had thought he was grasping it, 
but that was all illusion. He wondered if Dean 
Fannicott, Doctor Dyrcks, Professor Gabler, 
Mr. Whitney (now his rhetoric instructor), 
had it. 

One day in the English seminar he read a play 
by Yeats. It seemed as if the people in it were 
all striving toward that real thing which he could 
not define. It was called in the book, absurdly, 
he thought, The Land of Heart's Desire. He 
read more plays, all required by his drama course 
under Dyrcks—a dark, lanky, awkward man who 
lounged upon the desk as he talked. The Lonely 

36] 


PETER WARSHAW 


Way, The Green Cockatoo, by Schnitzler, Monna 
Vanna, by Maeterlinck, Stephen Phillips’ Paolo 
and Francesca —they all perplexed and baffled 
him. They were about people who were different 
from anyone he knew. Were there people like 
that, then? Did Fannicott, Dyrcks, Gabler and 
Whitney know them? 

He was drunk from reading sometimes. When 
he left the seminar, the late afternoon sunlight 
blinded him and blood-red streaks taunted his 
eyes. The warm spring air, the budding trees, the 
yellow tulips by University Hall, the sound of the 
band practicing, the shrill whistle of the garden¬ 
ers puttering about the flower beds, all seemed 
strange and clothed in mysticism. He went along 
with his head down, not speaking to people he 
knew. If he had spoken he would have wanted 
to give voice to the queer phrases that were sluic¬ 
ing through his mind like trickling gold. The 
feverish melting pot of his brain poured forth the 
words he had read, in new semblances. Often 
there was no meaning to their shapes: 

“And jaded filth, Lebret . . . your dagger's 
rabble . . . too oft the harlequin . . . brimstone 
bellowing . . . what sooth, Prospere—an endless 
quiet . . . may I play with your sword? ... a 
dreadful shadow on the grass . . . the silver 
pinnacle of your naked breast — Messire, a flutter- 

[37 


TOWN AND GOWN 


ing of satin wings . . . imperishable beauty 
catches fire!” 

He remembered wanting to juggle myriads of 
shining balls, standing tilted on top of the Obser¬ 
vatory. Maybe he was a little—crazy? The 
thought made him feel reckless. 

Coming out of Sterling Hall one day, he yelled 
hoarsely and flung his sophomore hat up into a 
tree. It lodged there and he went on, glad the 
campus was deserted. His footsteps echoed on 
the walk—the raucous quarreling of bronze 
grackles in the pine trees, a sudden gust of organ 
music from the auditorium as Professor North, 
practicing for his recital, enthusiastically pulled 
out all the stops. 

Peter laughed aloud, sardonically, evilly. “God, 
how I hate it!” 

He wondered, all at once, if Whitney were 
there in his office up in University Hall. He 
took the steps two at a time, hoping somehow 
that Whitney could help him. 

The young instructor was at a desk in the long, 
dim room. He smiled as Peter entered and leaned 
back in his chair. 

“Hello, Warshaw. Bring back that theme I 
told you to revise ?” 

“No,” said Peter. He sat down awkwardly in 
a chair by the desk and cleared his throat. “I— 
just dropped in to see if you were here.” 

38 ] 


PETER WARSHAW 


“Glad you did,” said Whitney easily. 

Peter ran his hand through his tawny hair. He 
looked helplessly and inarticulately at Whitney. 

“Look here,” he blurted, “what’s the matter with 
me?” 

“The matter with you?” Whitney considered a 
moment, frowned, and began glibly, “Too self- 
conscious for one thing, Warshaw. The begin¬ 
nings of knowledge seeping into your brain are 
not yet coordinated. A sort of hyper-intense 
awareness of your ego is making you mentally 
clumsy. Your themes are dreadful! That’s be¬ 
cause they will later be good. Your themes—” 

“I don’t give a whoop in hell about themes,” 
said Peter rudely. “And I never will.” 

Whitney raised his eyebrows and was silent. 
. . . The sound of the band practicing Hail To 
Alma Mater crept dismally through the open 
window. . . . 

“You think Pm egotistical?” asked Peter in a 
suddenly small and humble voice. 

“Very,” replied Whitney. 

Peter thought. 

“Listen,” he said, “where did I hear this: 

Star-washed pavilions keeping faith 
With candle-blanched night . . . 

Here where the ashes of dead days are kept 

And crumpled griefs, faint-perfumed with your tears. 

Ah, Leocadie, thy voice is wine 
That trickles—that leaps— 


[39 


TOWN AND GOWN 


He continued desperately, shamedly, his eyes 
on the window— 

That leaps like thin amber fire. 

The flame is gone and with its splendor, doubting 
And pallid tears and nagging beauty’s lure . . . 
And there’s an end to questing. . . . 

“That's all,” he muttered. He felt ready to cry. 

“Bravo!” said Mr. Whitney. “IBs a little too 
rich in imagery—your last line is abrupt. ‘It's 
splendor' is bad technically. Couldn't you say 
‘that splendor,' avoiding the allision of ‘s’es’?'' 

“It isn’t mine,” lied Peter. He rose and at¬ 
tempted a matter-of-fact tone. “I'll bring that 
theme in tomorrow.” 

“Yes, do. Come in again,” said Whitney 
warmly. “And your verse—bring in more of 
your verse.” 

His verse! What if Whitney told the fellows 
he wrote verse? They would think him queer. 
They would rag him. 

. . . As he went up the steps of the A. O. G. 
house Ted Ireland and Perce Bainum, in the porch 
swing, watched him critically. 

“Where's your sophomore hat?” asked Ted, 
eying Peter’s wind-blown hair. 

“In a tree by Sterling Hall,” said Peter, color¬ 
lessly. As he entered the house he heard Perce 
ask Ted: 

“What's the matter with that bird?” 

40] 


PETER WARSHAW 


'Temperamental, I guess,” Ted answered. 
They both laughed derisively. 

IX 

After a summer spent in canvassing for the 
Longlast Aluminum Company, Peter decided that 
he was the salesman type—that he could "sell 
himself,” "make a good approach,” "close up.” 
He was through with nonsense. . . . He assured 
his parents that he was "going to get on top of 
things.” 

"You’re on top right now,” said his mother 
proudly. "You’re in with the right sort of peo¬ 
ple down there. You’ll know how to get around 
in good society when you’re a wealthy business 
man.” 

"Well, and you seem level-headed,” put in his 
father; "it shows good sense the way you’ve gone 
out and helped with expenses this summer. I 
believe you’re making the most of your oppor¬ 
tunities. . . . And that’s what we want.” 

Peter registered for Accountancy and Eco¬ 
nomics the first semester of his junior year. But 
he did not deny himself the pleasure of another 
course with Dyrcks, whose dark, somber smile 
Peter was growing to understand and like. Then 
he crowded in Gabler’s Russian Literature and 
a two-hour course in Philosophy under Doctor 

[4i 


1 


TOWN AND GOWN 

Cynara Georges. She was a woman about thirty 
with red-brown eyes and a mop of mahogany- 
colored hair. Her voice was quiet and rather deep 
—she watched understanding^ while you recited, 
seemed to encourage you with her “m -Jim,” 
“m -hm !”—then she pounced on your conclusions 
with feline swiftness and tore them into shreds. 
From her course Peter remembered longest that 
first premise of Descartes’, “I exist. How often? 
As often as I think.” (He scribbled it on his 
study-table calendar once but Jimmy changed 
“think” to “drink” and the laughter of Perce 
and Ted made Peter feel like an ass.) 

And there was Doctor Richard O’Neill in Eco¬ 
nomics, too. Some people said he was a “Red,” 
a propagandist . . . One day Peter was dreaming 
through O’Neill’s lecture like those about him, 
when a different note in the instructor’s voice 
caught his attention. O’Neill was standing, as 
was his habit, on the low platform, legs wide 
apart, head out-thrust and tongue lolling half 
humorously from between his parted lips: 

“I wish you would come to me open-minded, 
ready to abandon irrational codes for rational, 
willing to cast out old beliefs, old doctrines; to 
kick aside barriers, inhibitions; smash up codes, 
preconceived faiths—” 

Peter had a sudden feeling of cleanness and 
lightness as if a rain-washed wind had whisked 
42] 


PETER WARSHAW 

away the debris piled chaotically in his mind. His 
eyes met O'Neill’s for a moment. . . . Nobody 
else had looked up. Sylvia Cole, the pretty flap¬ 
per next to Peter, was conscientiously writing in 
her notebook: 

“i. Must come, 

a. open-minded 

b. ready to abandon irr. codes for r. 

c. kick aside barriers, inhib., etc.” 

After the class Peter loitered beside O’Neill’s 
desk, asking some meaningless question about the 
assignment. 

O’Neill gave him a searching glance. He 
saw a tall, slim fellow with a freckled face, thin 
lips and crisp, vivid red hair, fingering a junior 
cap nervously. O’Neill smiled almost shyly at 
Peter as if he feared the look of liking and re¬ 
sponse would disappear. . . . “I was going to 
take a little walk—care to come ?” 

They struck across the campus toward the old 
cemetery. They hastened along in the crisp Octo¬ 
ber weather, sniffing the aroma of the air: leaf- 
mold, frosty earth and sear grass. 

O’Neill walked very fast, head thrust forward, 
eyes straight ahead, clipping at the path with his 
short stick. Peter wanted to run, to shout. He 
knew that he was trampling his resolution of the 
summer underfoot. He began to talk very rapid¬ 
ly, trying incoherently to tell O’Neill all that had 

[43 


TOWN AND GOWN 


ever happened to him, while the older man nodded 
“Of course!” “Of course!” . . . “To be sure!” 
“To be sure!”—always looking ahead and clipping 
the path with his cane. 

“. . .it looks to me now as if Fd been wasting 
my time,” Peter went on. “Fve got to hurry. It’s 
all so—so short.” 

They had reached the cemetery with its over¬ 
grown paths, crumbling stones and litter of fallen 
leaves. A red sun was slipping down behind the 
spears of distant pines. They watched the win¬ 
dows of the massive armory turn to golden eyes. 

O’Neill gave his curious chuckle. “I was wait¬ 
ing for you to come to me, Warshaw. I rather 
thought you would. Miss Georges spoke about 
you to me.” 

Peter was pleased. She had noticed him, then ? 
The memory of her red-brown eyes, her white 
hands with the squarish wrists, her resonant voice 
droning “m -hm” “m -hm” came to him poig¬ 
nantly. 

X 

They talked until it was dusk. 

Peter returned to his fraternity house, his head 
swirling as if he had been drinking wine. In his 
room he found Ted Ireland playing stud poker 
with Jimmy. 

“I saw you with old Dicky O’Neill,” said Ire- 
44] 


PETER WARSHAW 

land. “What’s the old propagandist teaching 
you?” 

“Sure, he’ll hand you the gaff,” said Jimmy 
from the bed. “He’s paid for it.” 

Peter’s face grew red, and with a sudden, wild 
clutch at the dramatic, he unfastened his pin and 
dashed it down on the table. “There, you damned 
four-flushers!” he said. “Take your pin. I’m 
through.” 

He stood a moment, casting about for more 
startling action, then started throwing books, 
towels, neckties into his trunk. 

“Don’t be pettish,” implored Jimmy lightly. 

“And don’t fool with that pin,” Ted warned 
him. “You might be taken seriously.” 

Peter went on packing. “I’m through,” he re¬ 
peated, parrot-like. 

Ted and Jimmy left the room. Peter locked the 
door and continued to pack. His anger had 
vanished—he kept a tight clutch on his mood of 
recklessness lest that desert him, too. 

He heard Ted and Jimmy outside the door, 
conferring with Perce Bainum. He caught a 
whisper now and then: 

“That goddam sorehead is—” 

“Don’t fool with him. . . . a lot of stinkum 
[#1 . . bunkum ...” 

“How does he get that way?” 

“Perce, you’re the head of the house. What’s 

[45 


TOWN AND GOWN 


the fraternity precedent? ... Got to come up at 
business meeting.” 

Peter expected to be sorry the next day—but 
just now he was delighted with himself. Wow! 
Hadn’t he made a sensation? 

“I didn’t think I had it in me,” he muttered. 
He threw in many of Jimmy’s ties along with his. 

XI 

He went to meetings of a discussion group at 
Doctor Dyrcks’ apartment with O’Neill. Very 
often he met Miss Georges there, sometimes Pro¬ 
fessor Gabler—never Dean Fannicott or Mr. 
Whitney. To his surprise he found that a num¬ 
ber of the students were “young radicals”, that 
some of them wore Greek letter pins and were 
well known socially. The meetings had been go¬ 
ing on for years. Why had he never heard of 
them? He discovered that he was ill-acquainted 
with this University of his—it was very different 
from his first ideas of it. 

He glutted himself on talk—talk of the war, 
peace conferences, Russia, Communism, pragma¬ 
tism, the Rochdale system of cooperation, Bert¬ 
rand Russell, Shaw, Wells, Dostoevsky, Niet¬ 
zsche, Anatole France, Henry James, the modern 
movement in poetry, Rupert Brooke, Masefield, 
Robinson, Frost, Aikens, Ezra Pound, Japanese 
46] 


PETER WARSHAW 


verse—what was the time-unit of vers libre?— 
the relation of color to music ?—how to secure the 
third dimension in pictures? At first he read 
furiously to keep pace with the talkers, but he 
found he did not have to know what he was talk¬ 
ing about—his ingenuous opinions given without 
the background of knowledge drew the most at¬ 
tention to himself. 

He was as eager to display the real Peter now 
as he had been eager to construct an artificial self. 
He was almost affectedly natural. He ignored 
niceties of grooming and etiquette deliberately— 
he was on a debauch of abandonment now, gallop¬ 
ing furiously about the world of ideas. He 
flaunted his moods before those he knew they 
would startle—red rags at Philistine bulls. He 
argued wildly in classes, wrote free verse for the 
college magazine (a “liberal” publication), and 
hectored F. Blair Golden, editor of the student 
daily newspaper, with mischievous letters of op¬ 
probrium and assault. 

Back in the old house on Mulberry Street he 
made his room as nearly like a studio as he could, 
with a few batik rags here and there, tall red 
candles, a low couch spread out like a Turkish 
divan, pillows of mad hue, a mangy leopard skin 
he had picked up at a pawn-shop. . . . An unex¬ 
pected thing had happened—one morning Jimmy 
came back. 


[47 


TOWN AND GOWN 

“I chucked ’em, too,” he said. “Too much of a 
strain on me to keep respectable. What’s the 
good of their moilin’ and toilin’ anyhow? ... I 
like your Turkish effect here.” He ensconced 
himself contentedly. “Have some gin?” 

Jimmy was cutting most of his classes. He 
slept until noon, went out to eat, came back to 
smoke, drink and sleep some more. It was irri¬ 
tating when Peter brought his friends up to the 
room to find Jimmy stretched out at ease, ready 
to pounce upon the conversation and didactically 
pronounce all ideas, no matter what, “stinkum 
and bunkum”. . . . Still it angered Peter to have 
Doctor O’Neill ask him one day why he humored 
“that degenerate lout”. . . . And why did he? 
Jimmy was no good but he couldn’t deny his affec¬ 
tion for him. 

One night, (he had been reading Crime and 
Punishment, by Dostoevsky), sitting at the win¬ 
dow and looking out at the blackness of the sleep¬ 
ing world, he saw life as a phantasmagoria of 
shifting forms: the grotesque and ugly, blackened 
dens of murky evils, opium bunks, the far cities 
of Shanghai and Cairo, stretches of feverish 
sand, pyramids, exotic purple flowers, women 
dancing like silver flames, stokers with gleaming, 
naked torsos dripping sweat, wizened men who 
begged with knotted, shaking hands, lousy chil¬ 
dren shrieking and groveling, babies crying with 
48] 


PETER WARSHAW 


twisted red faces because they were helpless and 
afraid, boys dreading themselves in the first clutch 
of passion, girls with white bodies and moist red 
mouths—and faces, faces, faces—yellow, white, 
black, prehensile, greedy, barbarous, young, con¬ 
vulsed, senile—dancing like leaves in the wind a 
moment, downflung in myriads ... a rustle 
. . . they were still . . . putrescence . . . the 
deep, dreadfully silent snows of oblivion. 

Infinity slowly unfurled itself before him, a 
dark and ever darkening mantle that wavered up 
first as a thin spiral, shook out fold after fold; 
deepening in blackness, in power, swifter and 
swifter it whirled like a maddening dervish—he 
was caught in the outer folds now, swept tighter 
and tighter into muffled impotence, swathed in it, 
blinded and deafened by that horrible, elusive 
tissue, suffocated. There was no escape. He was 
pinioned—borne away from his little, familiar 
world of cups and sheets and chairs—things you 
could clutch!—God! . . . there was nothing to 
clutch out there—even the spheres had vanished • 
—only darkness, silence and space upon space. 

He started back from the window. He wanted 
people, voices, laughter. . . . The room looked 
weird—tall-piled shadows in the corners, a stubby 
candle burning low. Jimmy asleep, his face wear¬ 
ing a ghastly pallor. 


[49 


TOWN AND GOWN 


. . . Peter stumbled over on the couch, seized 
Jimmy’s shoulder, shook him furiously. 

“Hell! What?—what is it?” 

Jimmy was warm, comforting, actual. In his 
striped pajamas he sat up and looked around, un¬ 
aware that he was personifying Matter. He did 
not mention the strangeness of Peter’s eyes, the 
idiocy of his shrill, relieved laugh. 

“I—I thought you were dead,” he muttered. 

“Gimme a cigarette,” said Jimmy. “I was dead 
—dead drunk!” 

“Get up,” said Peter. “Let’s go out to a 
beanery and eat. . . . I’m damned hungry.” 

XII 

Spring came back again and the gardeners put¬ 
tered once more around beds of jonquils and 
tulips. The brisk gait of the campus slowed into 
a loiter—more vacant seats at classes, more 
crowded booths at You’ll Come Inn; tobacco 
smoke, perfume and laughter; the night made 
staccato by serenading saxophones and the open 
cutouts of speeding cars. 

Peter found himself fagged, impatient with 
wordy conversations—restless, perplexed, bad- 
tempered. He wondered what had cdme over 
him. Once when the “group” met at Doctor 
Cynara Georges’, drinking tea and smoking in a 
50 ] 


PETER WARSHAW 


room lit only by the grate fire, he thought sud¬ 
denly that he hated them. Dyrcks’ dark, somber 
smile, the look in his eyes as he watched every 
movement of Miss Georges, disgusted Peter most 
of all. Or maybe it was she he hated, she alone, 
because of her resonant voice and gesturing hands 
that had become so poignant to him. Because 
she seemed so sure of herself and was kind to 
him. 

Although he hated her he stayed after the rest 
had left. He was especially glad when the last, 
Dyrcks, had gone out of the door and the sound of 
his footsteps died away in the corridor. . . . Sit¬ 
ting in that deep chair by the fireside she looks 
little and very feminine. The lace about her 
squarish wrists is creamy and soft. Is she sure 
of herself, after all? She looks very tired. Do 
I hate her? . . . 

He fancied himself in a strange, distant city 
with her—Bagdad, Canton—she would not be 
merely kind to him there. He would be able to 
make long speeches—wise speeches— 

“More tea, Peter?” 

“No, thanks.” 

He stood tall and stiff before her, fingering a 
bowl on the mantelpiece. 

“That is a—nice thing.” 

“Yes—Majolica.” 

If they were only in Bagdad—or Canton! It 

[5i 


TOWN AND GOWN 


was impossible here—he was haunted by remem¬ 
bered quiz papers on which her red ink glistened 
—“Can you prove this statement?”, “You have 
mistaken Hume’s meaning.” Damn the Univer¬ 
sity anyway! It had created this barrier. . . . 
Spring articulate outside—and he inside, inarticu¬ 
late ! She was a woman. And he was a man. 

He wanted to fling himself down on his knees 
at her feet and bury his head in her lap. . . . 
He walked over to the piano and began to play 
Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in F, then a nocturne of 
Schumann’s and then Mon occur s’ouvre a ta voix. 

First she sat quietly in the armchair, next he 
heard her quick hands moving among the tea 
things—now she was close behind him and her 
fingers crept very gently through his hair. He 
did not dare to stop playing. He played on and 
on—he couldn’t stop. At last her voice—“Don’t 
play any more, Peter.” 

His hands made a loud discord where they fell 
upon the keys. She had lit a cigarette and was 
leaning against the piano, her red-brown eyes 
deep and rich with thoughts he could not guess. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve bored you—have I bored 
you?” 

“No, no, Peter—hurt me, I think.” 

He looked up at her dumbly with a look that 
he thought she surely could read. She went on 
swiftly, “Hurt me by your youth. Stirred up in 
52 ] 




PETER WARSHAW 

me old things I thought were put by. Remem¬ 
bering when I was like that—restless and haunted 
and wanting—God knows what! Peter, don’t 
ever get sure of yourself—didactic like I am. It’s 
deadly.” 

“I can’t,” he said. “I wish I could.” 

He turned brusquely to the piano. With cer¬ 
tain fingers he sounded a chord, first very faintly, 
then more firmly and again, louder. 

“What is it?” she asked. 

“Leocadie,” he said. “That’s it—Leocadie.” 

“I don’t understand—” 

“You don’t understand lots of things,” he mut¬ 
tered. With swift decision he rose, seized his 
coat and hat and told her he must go. O’Neill 
was giving a quiz in Ec tomorrow. It had been 
very nice—he had enjoyed it. And good night. 

Out in the street he whispered his name for 
her—“Leocadie! Leocadie!”—many times. 

Why couldn’t he go on with things—ever ? Why 
did the actual elude him ? It was like that verse of 
long ago—or maybe she was like the verse: 

“Leaps like thin amber fire . . . the flame is gone 

And with its splendor, doubting 

And pallid tears and nagging beauty’s lure— 

And there’s an end to questing.” 

He passed the A. O. G. house on the way home. 
They were giving a dance—he could hear the 
music. He pitied himself, feeling very lonely. 

[53 




TOWN AND GOWN 


XIII 

The finals were over and he was through with 
being a junior. Walking across the campus for 
the last time that year, he looked at it all specu¬ 
latively. 

What had it been twenty years ago? What 
would it be in twenty more? Just now it was a 
stretch of great open spaces and noble trees. 
Furors of landscape gardening went on continu¬ 
ally; workmen were always plotting new, scrolly 
beds like tortuous black islands and continents in 
a sea of green. There was no homogeneity in the 
buildings’ architecture. The library was Gothic 
with red-tiled roof. Old University Hall was of 
no style whatever. The auditorium aspired to 
embody a symposium of Greek ideals. The new 
part of Sterling Hall was medieval English— 
the old part had forgotten from what period it 
sprung. He liked the massive, carved doors on 
the new museum, but the stone was ugly and the 
whole thing clumsy, he thought. The chemistry 
building was severe with a preoccupied, studious 
aspect; he fancied it gazing through bone-rimmed 
glasses at a test-tube. 

Seniors were wont to tell awed parents at Com¬ 
mencement time that here were the largest chem¬ 
istry laboratories in the world. The largest col- 
54 ] 


PETER WARSHAW 


lege band! The greatest college newspaper! 
The biggest armory! 

They did not mention the richness or paucity 
of ideas. 

He remembered his first registration, that 
ceaseless tread of feet passing and repassing. He 
had been bewildered, had wished to fling himself 
on this soft grass to shut that treading out. Each 
year, freshmen would be frightened by it. Per¬ 
haps old University Hall was frightened by those 
impatient feet that clamored at its corridors: 

Chaos, noise, intangible unrest! Interwoven 
personalities, Youth straining at the leash of law, 
rebellion surging against the dams of Civilisa¬ 
tion. . . . Torrents of fresh life rushing up in a 
new-crested wave to wear away another imper¬ 
ceptible layer of an institution's resisting em¬ 
bankment. . ... ». 

“Just a minute, Warshaw!” It was Doctor 
Richard O'Neill, hurrying after him with lean 
strides. “I wanted to say good-by to you, War¬ 
shaw. I'm leaving for the east. I suppose you're 
going home tonight?" 

“This afternoon. . . . Are you giving that 
course in Ec Fifteen next year?" 

“Oh, you didn't know then? I'm going to an¬ 
other college next year." 

“I wish I were leaving, too." 


[55 


TOWN AND GOWN 

“No, you must stay and keep the Group stirred 
up. Dyrcks will be here and Miss Georges—or, 
rather, Mrs. Dyrcks. They’re to be married in 
the summer.” 

“Yes—yes, I heard they were.” Peter con¬ 
cealed his surprise. He hadn’t heard. 

For a moment he was numb, uncaring, as if 
she had been some alien who had no grip on his 
emotions. But as he walked away his sense of 
loss suddenly smote him. . . . Leocadie dead! 
The little apartment deserted—the quiet, delicious 
pain of watching her move about the tea things, 
so aloof and mysterious, would not trouble him 
any more. Her red-brown eyes intent on 
thoughts he could not share. He was shut out— 
a Peri beating at closed gates. . . « 

“You, Leocadie, warm in Paradise, 

So sure and still; and proudly comforted— 

Will you not hear some night—with hushed surprise, 

The faint beseeching of a Peri’s cries 

And answer tremulous ? Or bow your head, 
Swift-sealing memory within your eyes? ,, 

He stopped to write it on the back of an 
envelope. He tried to revise the last line, for¬ 
getting for a moment the pain that had created it. 

XIV 

Fireflies spun broken paths of gold through the 
darkness. The red and white peonies lifting 

56] 


PETER WARSHAW 


heavy heads beside the porch were indistinct 
blurs. It seemed very drowsy to Peter as he sat 
on the steps and smoked, gazing at the new 
building of the Maybury waterworks across the 
street. An automobile passed now and then, a 
child steering its wagon on the pavement, a 
soundless bicycle or two. From next door a 
phonograph playing “Avalon” over and over— 
the occasional shouts of boys on the lawn: “Run, 
sheep, run!” “King’s ex!” “King’s ex!” He 
was waiting to take his mother to choir practice. 

She stepped out of the door, portly, a bit 
breathless, pinning on her hat. 

“Mercy, it’s hot! I should have watered those 
pinies. Aren’t you going to wear a hat? Well, 
I presume that’s a new college wrinkle.” 

As they walked along she fanned herself with 
the small pasteboard fan she held in her neatly 
silk-gloved hand. “Are you anxious to get back 
to school this time, Peter? It must seem mighty 
dead here after all your gadding around.” 

“No, Mother, honestly I like it. I haven’t been 
stepping out much down there. I feel just as 
sleepy and lazy as a kid.” 

“You’ve been working too hard. You need a 
good rest.” 

“I’ve been thinking hard, but I haven’t worked 
much.” 

He had an unconquerable urge to explain. 

[57 


TOWN AND GOWN 

“Been thinking a lot, sort of seeing what it’s all 
about. I feel as if I had graduated already. 
The degree doesn’t matter. Would you care if— 
if—” It was hard to broach. “—if I stopped 
there now—I mean, would you be disappointed? 
I’d like to go some place where I could find out 
what I want. Down there I just found out that I 
did want something. I’ll work, you know, make 
my own way—I thought some of going to Eng¬ 
land on a cattle ship. Then if I could get to 
Paris—” 

“Peter!” She stopped fanning and put the fan 
into her bag with fingers that shook a little. “Not 
graduate? ... I felt this was coming, Peter. I 
saw you were changed. Kind of an indifference— 
and getting sloppy again and careless acting. 
I’m glad you brought this up, Peter. I just 
wanted to tell you—you ought to be knowing 
what you want to do. You’re not a child. You 
know we don’t mean you to make your own way. 
We’re willing to send you—we’ve been willing. 
But we’re a little disappointed. Your father has 
noticed it, too. Giving up your fraternity—act¬ 
ing so queer! You’ve lost your ambitions—” 

“No, Mother, no, I haven’t. If you’d just 
listen ” He struggled to be coherent, but it did 
sound absurd in words. And she was right; he 
ought to know now, ought to have some footing. 
But he hadn’t. Not a single definite thing. Only 

58] 


PETER WARSHAW 

the vague feeling that it would be a kind of spir¬ 
itual redundance to go back. “Don’t you see, it’s 
a matter of failing. I did get a lot of things 
down there, but they all taught me I’d failed. 
And the more I got, the more I found out I was 
failing. Now if I can get some place where— 
where—” 

“You mean you’ve failed in your studies, 
Peter?” 

“No, no,” he laughed. “Look at it this way—I 
haven’t any background. I met people at the Uni¬ 
versity: a Doctor O’Neill and a—Miss Georges— 
they talked to me a lot—they were wonderful to 
me. I guess they liked me. They made me see 
how futile it is. Mother, I can’t be a business 
man or a doctor either, I’m afraid—Mother!” 

“Well, we wouldn’t mind if—what do you want 
to be, Peter ?” 

“I don’t know,” he said in a contrite voice. 

“Well, maybe you’ll find out if you go back.” 

She tried to make it sound cheerful, but he 
realized the fear and disappointment and bewil¬ 
derment in the troubled depths of her mind. 

He wondered if he could make his father un¬ 
derstand. “I believe I’ll drop into Father’s office,” 
he said at the door of the church. 

She walked on in, silent, her head held very 
straight as if she were urging herself into an 
assumption of bravery and pride. 


s 


[59 


TOWN AND GOWN 


Standing irresolutely on the bare church steps, 
he looked after her. The vestibule door closed. 
He felt sick and ashamed. 

He knew, suddenly, that she would never be 
proud of him. 

His father was sitting in the old splint-bottomed 
chair beside the same old three-legged table. But 
there was an electric light now, dangling where 
the kerosene lamp used to be. He looked up from 
a ponderous volume. 

Peter leaned against a showcase, where the old 
dolls and jewel boxes had been replaced by 
brushes, corn plasters and hot water bags. 
“Looks great in here now, Father.” 

“Yes, your mother thought we were getting a 
mite old-fashioned in here.” His father’s eyes 
twinkled facetiously. “She got rid of my cus¬ 
pidor. Reckon when you come back with your 
sheepskin you’ll beat us all for progressiveness. 
We-11, progress is all right. Now take the Old 
School and the New School of medicine: the Allo¬ 
paths thought they had every known remedy—” 

He was off. Peter listened for a moment, then 
his thoughts wandered. After all, it was no more 
tedious than Dyrcks’ and Whitney’s dissertations 
on Elizabethan drama. . . . His father was ris¬ 
ing, replacing the book, snapping off the light. 
“Guess I’ll be closing up now. Ready to go?” 

He had not broached it yet. . . . They walked 

60] 


PETER WARSHAW 


slowly along Front Street. His father briskly 
stroked his gray beard. They spoke to everybody 
they met. 

“Yes, I was telling your mother,” said his 
father, suddenly, “not to worry if your letters 
sounded queer—and all these liberal friends of 
yours do irritate her—you’ll come out all right, 
Peter. Another year will fix you up in fine shape. 
You’re a little vague now, but that’s what educa¬ 
tion does—knocks all that vagueness out of a 
young chap.” 

Peter opened his mouth to emit turbulent 
speech, but the speech didn’t come. . . . He lit a 
cigarette. They walked up to the brown frame 
house with its scrolly white porch and scrambling 
vines. 

His father stooped stiffly, fumbled for the key 
under the doormat. He straightened, bewildered* 
“The key isn’t under the doormat,” he said in 
perturbed tones. 

Peter, looking at the fireflies, started. “What, 
the key isn’t under the doormat?” 

“It always is—it must be.” His father was 
stooping to fumble again. 

“I have it. Mother gave it to me,” said Peter. 
He fitted the key into the lock and they went in., 


[61 


TOWN AND GOWN 


xv 

On the train going back to the State University, 
Peter watched the brown fields and sturdy shocks 
of oats, straight, shiny wire fences, red barns, 
silos, orange-colored station houses and the 
placid, untinted blue sky over green meadows and 
muddy ponds where cows stood knee-deep in 
warm, stagnant water. 

O’Neill would be gone. Had the Administra¬ 
tion indicated its displeasure with him? Peter 
remembered the lugubrious chuckle, the lolling 
tongue, and envied the students that would stroll 
with him on some other campus. Gabler would 
be there, Whitney, Dyrcks—and she ... he 
breathed a little quicker at the thought of seeing 
her again. They would meet alone some time and 
he meant to stare at her significantly, discon¬ 
certingly. 

'‘Restless and haunted and wanting,” she had 
said. “Don’t ever be sure of yourself, Peter.” 
She had drawn her fingers tenderly through his 
hair. Yes, she had done that. . . . 

A boy settled himself in the next seat, pulling 
up his trousers with self-conscious care. He sat 
quietly for a moment, gazing straight before him 
with a distraught expression. Then he pulled out 
a brown announcement of courses and com- 
62] 


PETER WARSHAW 


menced puzzling over “Directions to Reg¬ 
istrants,” sometimes tracing the lines with a hand 
that bore a highschool class ring. 

Peter laughed. He could almost hear Jimmy's 
voice—“toilin' an' moilin'—all stinkum an' 
bunkum!” Well, old Jimmy would be back. 
Jimmy would always be back. 

Peter turned to the window and watched the 
fat corn lands again. 




♦ 


/ 



[63 


1 


Second Episode: 

THE FACULTY AND 
THE CREAKING SHIRT 


From the University Regulations: 

“Members of the faculty shall be 
present at all social entertainments 
given by or for an organization or 
group of students at which men and 
women are present 


\ 


/ 





II: The Faculty and the 
Creaking Shirt 

i 

T HE girl at the right of Dean Fannicott 
was explaining to the boy at her right 
about anachronisms: “—they are the 
wall-flowers at the ball of Time; misfits, errors of 
the age. Pewter Hughes is one—muscles and 
savagery and primitiveness . . . better off as a 
cave-dweller. Pm an anachronism. Should have 
liked brocades and powdered wigs—back in the 
time of triolets and courtesans—” 

Brocades! Triolets! Courtesans! 

The assistant dean of the Department of Eng¬ 
lish stole a curious glance in the direction of the 
voice, a voice as delicate as a black and white 
etching on parchment. A slimly rounded shoul¬ 
der was almost grazing his dinner coat. Her 
hand, with dangling beaded bracelets quivering 
from the wrist, was displaying its whiteness and 
bright, enameled tips by a meandering gesture. 
He noted the strange head-dress she wore caught 

[6 7 


TOWN AND GOWN 


like an exotic bird of plumage in her black hair. 
The cut of her golden gown at the back was—ah 
—slashing, he thought. She was not looking at 
him. Yet he told himself amusedly that her dis¬ 
sertation on anachronisms had been perhaps for 
his benefit. The round shoulder brushed nearer 
his own. He moved away a careful inch, remark¬ 
ing to Miss Griffith (on his left) that the pastel 
shades in the flower centerpieces were exquisite. 

The assistant dean of the department of Eng¬ 
lish was unaccountably discomfited. It may have 
been because the greatest demand he made upon 
his friends and, indeed, upon the world was con¬ 
sistency. He would rather a rogue proved a 
rogue once society so labeled him than for a stray 
whim of righteousness in the wretch’s nature to 
assert itself and upset the filing cabinets of jus¬ 
tice. He disliked people intensely when they ex¬ 
hibited streaks not in keeping with his verdicts 
on them. For his part he had found the world 
rather a neat, orderly place. He had had few 
quarrels with it. 

There is no reason to believe that Fannicott 
was not descended from that Captain Fannicot, a 
“bold and impatient” French bourgeois, who 
helped in 1832 to quell the insurrection of his 
fellow countrymen who were absurd enough to 
fight for their “rights.” He led his company 
against the rioters as a protest at their successive 
68 ] 


THE FACULTY 

hoistings of a red flag and a black flag. It was 
their inconsistency that so infuriated the good 
bourgeois—and his uncontrollable exasperation 
cost him his life. 

To be sure this Fannicott who now spelled his 
name with the additional “t” would have disap¬ 
proved of his ancestor’s ill-advised conduct as a 
course for himself in any situation. To him, con¬ 
sistency meant doing the thing and to preserve 
one’s life is most frequently the thing. Even red 
and black flags when hoisted with annoying alter¬ 
nation called forth only his quiet, thin, mirthless 
smile of pitying amusement. 

“Most people are such fools,” he often told 
young Whitney of the department. The most 
blatant and hopeless of all fools were the under¬ 
graduates. Fannicott (usually escorting Miss 
Griffith, also of the department) attended their 
frivolous functions with as good grace as a man 
of his classical degree could assume. On these 
evenings he felt himself to be exhibiting an in¬ 
dulgence and a forbearance really noteworthy. 
He assured himself that only Miss Griffith and 
the rest of his colleagues, forced as they all were 
into these sugar-coated perambulations called 
“formals”,—only these understanding members 
of the inner faculty circle could detect his weari¬ 
ness and boredom. His yawns he concealed with 
the utmost tact. He smiled kindly at the foolish 

[69 


TOWN. AND GOWN 


quips. He made one-syllable remarks that the 
youngsters could be depended upon to fathom. 
Only to Miss Griffith did he allow himself the 
occasional relief of addressing a speech concern¬ 
ing dithyrambs and Moliere and onomatopoeia. 

It was reasonably discomfiting, then, to hear 
epigrammatic remarks embodying triolets and 
courtesans on the lips of a badly dressed young 
girl who waved her hands about as if she were 
enacting a photoplay. With his habitual justice 
the assistant dean admitted that his observation 
about the pastel shades of the centerpiece would 
have been more appropriate on her lips, while her 
own elliptical pronouncements on anachronisms 
might really have amused Miss Griffith’s schol¬ 
arly mind had he, himself, chosen to utter them. 

. . . He finished a breast of roast duckling in 
silence. The greatest virtue of undergraduate 
affairs, he often remarked, was the excellence of 
their cuisines. The dinners were really perfect. 
Lacking conversation they served good food. 

He noticed that the little basket of nuts at his 
service was empty. He proffered it to Miss Grif¬ 
fith. “You might take it home to your sister’s 
little girl. Several of them would form a charm¬ 
ing tea set.” 

Before the young woman on his right turned 
about he had felt himself to be kindly and 
thoughtful. He did not like children. To have 
70] 


THE FACULTY 


remembered Miss Griffith’s small niece (long- 
legged, snuffly child!) was an act of noteworthy 
benevolence. Yet the moment this befeathered 
girl flashed him a glance he felt puerile and 
idiotic. 

“Oh, do let me give it my basket, too,” said the 
high voice. “How old is it?” 

He felt she said “it” malevolently. With what 
dispatch she spread the news of his absurd charity 
and collected many of the crepe trifles! In some 
curious fashion she gave the impression that “it” 
was a charge of his, making him seem, he thought, 
sentimental, fond, doddering. 

She passed him the silly baskets with a sweep¬ 
ing, gracious gesture. She smiled brilliantly. 

“Do tell me about ‘it’,” she encouraged. 

He smiled frostily and ate his salad. 

Her eyes seemed poised for a moment like glit¬ 
tering, unsteady birds arrested in flight. He 
looked up at them once and averted his gaze. He 
felt chilled, inimical, disturbed. He knew that 
his cold silence snubbed her. He was dogged yet 
alarmed. He bolstered himself by thinking stub¬ 
bornly, “She meant to make a fool of me”. It 
was characteristic of Fannicott that he didn’t 
think she had. Still he knew she thought she 
had. That error was almost as bad. 

He gave his undivided attention to Miss Grif¬ 
fith. He found himself studying her in a de- 

[7i 


TOWN AND GOWN 


tached, critical fashion; her somewhat prominent 
eyes set far apart, her hair bound in flat plaits 
under a rather obvious net about her well-shaped 
head, her generous mouth curving slowly into a 
thoughtful smile, the chiffon she kept drawing 
modestly about her shoulders—although her 
gown had small puffed sleeves—her large, capable 
hands moving calmly here and there. He felt 
remote from her, noting all these details as he 
never had before. All the while he was dimly 
aware of an exotic scent teasing his nostrils. 
“An immorally intriguing fragrance/' he com¬ 
mented grimly to himself. To himself? No— 
aloud. 

For—“They arrest people for seeing, eating, 
doing, drinking, talking," said the girl on his 
right, leaning earnestly toward him, “why not 
for smelling things? Why have free smell? It 
might mean treason. This perfume—sort of 
trail-y and incense-y and, as you say, immoral,— 
well, don’t you think of a great Japanese god 
you’d like to worship and of sandalwood and teak- 
wood and faint li’l pinky blossoms and great gold 
lanterns? That’s a kind of treason to your re¬ 
spectability, isn’t it now? Oh, and geisha girls, 
and sad-eyed Orientals swaying back and forth 
while they sing lyrics from Sosano-Ono-Mikoto. 

“Do you like Japanese poetry?" she inquired 
breathlessly. 

72] 


1 


THE FACULTY 


He had a manner of expressing indifference by 
keeping his eyes straight ahead in a rude, unre¬ 
sponsive immobility. He used this manner now 
for he knew it would aggrieve her if her gestures 
and restless glances were unobserved. 

“Do you like the metre uta?” she asked, gently. 
“You know it consists of thirty-one syllables, 
sometimes thirty-two, arranged as a distich, but 
written in five lines containing 5, 7, 5, 7, 7 syl¬ 
lables respectively/’ 

Still he did not look at her. The heavy fra¬ 
grance made him feel slightly dizzy. She leaned 
closer. Her shoulder was really brushing his din¬ 
ner coat. He reminded himself to make sure af¬ 
terward that there was no trace of powder left 
on his sleeve. Her eyes were like strange, rest¬ 
less, green birds, he thought fantastically. Their 
flutterings would mock him if he dared glance up. 
He was nervous, unstrung. Something alien in 
her, some inconsistency, antagonized him. He 
wished the dinner would terminate at once. He 
had an extraordinary desire to push back his chair 
and leave the room. He sat quite still contem¬ 
plating such a step and the peculiar insanity of it, 
and he looked very steadily and quite unsmilingly 
at his water glass. 

“Do you like this?” she said, and her voice was 
so low it seemed necessary for her to lean still 


nearer— 


[73 


TOWN AND GOWN 

Why has the harsh wind 
Carried away the blossoms 
With his savage breath 

And left untouched, uninjured, 

The leaves of the worn out tree? 

She chanted the mournful syllables in slow, 
droning monotone—gray her voice was now, as 
before it had been etched in black and white; and 
there was a hush of spring in it and the dull lul¬ 
laby of bees and the smooth waving of silver- 
green prairie grass rippling into a path for the 
invisible feet of the west wind . . . gray . . . 
gray! 

She was only a child, he thought. A swift pity 
surged up through him and stung his lids. All 
her trappings, the barbarous head-dress, the dar¬ 
ing golden gown, the dangling beads, were toys to 
her just as words were her toys. She handled the 
glistening phrases as she wore the ornaments 
without guessing their value or their danger— 
or their danger to others, he appended with a wry, 
inward smile. As he thought these things he was 
silent. His hand was moving his glass aimlessly. 
He tipped it and looked at the water. Shoved it 
an inch to the right. A bit to the left. 

For a moment or two she waited expectantly. 
Only he did not realize she had been waiting until 
she said: 

“I feel like hurrying away as the mouse did 

74 ] 



THE FACULTY 


after Alice spoke of Dinah. I have a—character¬ 
istic—similar to the mouse's chief—uh—char¬ 
acteristic." Her voice seemed suspended in air. 
At last he looked up cautiously. He saw only 
the waving tip of the iridescent feathers sweep¬ 
ing the curve of that cool and slimly rounded 
shoulder. She had turned to say some very con¬ 
fidential nothings to her dinner partner. 

She did not turn back. At first he had an un¬ 
defined hope, then a sense of abandonment. He 
faced Miss Griffith resentfully as if the disap¬ 
pointment of this denouement were her fault. 

She was perplexed when he asked abruptly, 
“By the way—apropos of really nothing—what 
was the chief characteristic of the Mouse?" 

“The Mouse?” said Miss Griffith. 

Fannicott thought her extremely stupid. He 
smiled to conceal his irritation. 

“The Mouse . . . the Mouse! Alice, you 
know. Alice in Wond-" 

“Ah, yes," said Miss Griffith. “The Mouse." 

Something had happened to his nerves. He 
thought if she said “mouse" again he would 
surely leave the table. Behind the mask of his 
cold smile he watched her assume her best 
judicial classroom expression. Never impulsive, 
she made it a point to deliberate a decent length 
of time after a question. Before, this trait had 
indicated to Fannicott poise and depth and 

[75 



TOWN AND GOWN 

thoughtfulness. It struck him now as being 
merely exasperating. 

“I believe,” said Miss Griffith firmly, at last, 
“that the outstanding quality of the Mouse in 
question was sensitiveness.” 

“Hah!” Fannicott’s one syllable was cryptic 
and a bit savage. 

II 

A bulbous shield with fraternity emblems 
spelled out in colored electric lights hung above 
the fireplace. The chaperons had been placed in 
the easiest chairs the club offered, frankly with 
the design of keeping them away from the dusky 
living rooms where the dancing went on. The 
dancing (aside from the deafening, syncopated 
accompaniment) was a solemn and silent business. 
It was unbelievably important to the undergradu¬ 
ates. They did not talk while they pat-patted 
through intricate slidings and dodgings. They 
did not seem to breathe. Their toes and heels did 
ridiculous and highly improbable things in time to 
rhythms that could not possibly exist. Their con¬ 
centration was, withal, admirable. With a high 
disregard for appearing absurd a young lady let 
herself be clutched by the nape of the neck or the 
shoulder or the backbone—sometimes the grasp 
was so circumlocutory as to include both of her 
arms! She usually rested her chin emphatically 
7 6 ] 


THE FACULTY 


against the man’s lapel or, if he were short, she 
clamped it on the edge of his shoulder. She main¬ 
tained a solemn expression with a trace of be- 
dazed hypnotism in it. The man exhibited a 
frozen smile and rolled his eyes frequently toward 
the flickering Japanese lanterns. 

A few couples sizzled up and down as if they 
were popcorn; others dashed to the side with con¬ 
fusing little rushes, stopping as if stunned, and 
vacillated for long, painstaking moments; still 
others loped in measured, sneaking strides about 
the room as if they were stalking some elusive 
prey. 

One-steps and fox-trots seemed rather vaguely 
but unmistakably to be connected with the chort¬ 
ling of the saxophone and the dinning of the ban¬ 
jo—rather often a note of harmony might be de¬ 
tected and very often a metronomic time but the 
dancers might have been deaf—they went on in 
their own ways never bothering to change their 
set modes of sizzling, vacillating or loping. 

... Or perhaps he was harsh? Perhaps Fan- 
nicott mused upon these phenomena too unkindly 
as he sat by the fireplace where he had been rel¬ 
egated by the deferential president of the frater¬ 
nity house. And after all, he told himself with 
tardy, acidulent justice, he had not been exactly 
relegated. He could have danced with Miss Grif¬ 
fith, He could give her his arm now and lead her 

[77 


TOWN AND GOWN 


in there and they could—but what could they do ? 
Certainly not sizzle, vacillate or lope. Inexpli¬ 
cably, he had to-night a rebellious distaste for do¬ 
ing a discreet step-slide-together with Miss Grif¬ 
fith held off at a decorous six-inch length. 

How would it seem, he wondered, to grab a 
girl—that girl with the iridescent head-dress and 
the daring gown—grab her determinedly and 
jauntily as he had seen sleek-haired youths do it 
and flaunt a new step, a swift, absurd, dizzy step 
without rhythm or reason and hold her authorita¬ 
tively and unrelentingly throughout the whole 
mad gyration that was jazz-? 

He reflected drearily that he was being very 
dull. Miss Griffith had fallen into a reverie. 
Prof. Gabler and Dean Agnes Watson were 
struggling to keep up an anemic conversation 
with two freshmen whose turn it was to “enter¬ 
tain” the faculty during the dance. 

In the frequent pauses one could almost hear 
the undergraduates desperately shuffling the 
messy leaves of their thoughts to find neat, re¬ 
spectable pages worthy of their elders. 

“It will be nice when the music hall is done, 
won't it, Dean Fannicott?” appealed the pink and 
white little girl. 

“Oh, very nice,” said he, avoiding the under¬ 
standing eyes of Miss Griffith. 

78 ] 



THE FACULTY 


“Yes, it'll be great when it's done/’ echoed the 
shiny-haired freshman. 

“I dare say, I dare say,” murmured old Gab- 
ler. 

“I am sure,” said Dean Watson, “that we shall 
all be very happy to have it ready for use.” 

That was finished. 

“Did you—did you—any of you happen to hear 
Dr. Hutton's lecture at th' auditorium Friday?” 
The shiny freshman made his overture, moisten¬ 
ing his lips after every two words. 

Fannicott wished that he would not moisten his 
lips. Annoying and nerve-racking habit! . . . 
With the tail of his eye he saw a golden gown 
silhouetted against masculine black in the door¬ 
way. . . . The freshman was looking at him 
anxiously. He looked past the freshman into the 
fireplace. He was sulking—he wished to sulk! 
Why should he grin like an ape and make pleasant 
remarks about Hutton? He didn't give a damn 
about Hutton! 

Dean Agnes Watson emerged from a yawn 
to defend the helpless freshman from the vast 
silence he had pulled down about his head. 

“Ah, it was very enjoyable,” she assured him 
mechanically, “very enjoyable indeed!” 

The assistant dean felt himself lapsing into a 
nervous state that was deplorable. She was 
standing there in the doorway with that ass of a 

[79 


TOWN AND GOWN 


football player—that Pewter Hughes. She was 
no doubt thinking what a wretched time he, Fan- 
nicott, was having. She was glad he was miser¬ 
able. Was it any of her business? Had she a 
right to stand there and gloat over him ? . . . He 
wondered what might happen if he threw the 
largest loving cup on the mantel at Prof. Gab- 
ler ? . . . He supposed she was whispering now 
to this fool “Pewter”,—this atavistic savage, all 
“muscles and primitiveness”—“Oh, what a rot¬ 
ten time the shaps are having!” Then she would 
go away and let herself be folded up in the com¬ 
pact grip of her caveman and begin loping again, 
sinuously and assiduously, in there where all was 
candlelight and joyous absurdity—and—romance. 

But the circle about the fireplace was startled 
to be interrupted by a shimmering figure in gold. 
The iridescent feathers were waving audaciously. 
She dragged the grinning Pewter’s bulky and 
resisting form into the group by the coatsleeve 
and pointed to him dramatically. 

“His shirt creaks!” she cried. 

Her voice was jerked by laughter struggling at 
some half-controlling leash. 

Prof. Gabler and Dean Fannicott and the fresh¬ 
man leaped to their feet. There was a moment 
of electric silence. Fannicott’s first reaction was 
one of vicarious shame. He wanted to take her 
aside and say: 

80] 



THE FACULTY 


“But you can’t make remarks like that, you 
know. It isn’t—the thing.” 

Then he was aware of Miss Griffith fidgeting 
at his side, of the slow movement of deprecation 
she was making with her head, of her slow voice 
murmuring, “Well—re-ailly-” 

Because of Miss Griffith’s displeasure, Fan- 
nicott was glad when old Gabler laughed. The 
freshman followed the professor’s example with 
the promptness of an adjacent nine-pin. Miss 
Watson smiled, politely vague. 

Joyously now and without restraint, the girl 
was laughing, too. Her chin was thrust up and 
out as if she were standing on a high stage look¬ 
ing down at an audience she meant to conquer. 
Her breath came quickly—she was an actress 
playing out an emotional scene—all her muscles 
seemed tensed for some dramatic purpose. Her 
laughter was mesmeric. Potent. 

“Listen,” she said, and she drew the yielding 
Hughes into an intricate dance step. There was 
a faint squeaking like the sighing of the wind in 
a broken poplar branch. The girl became sud¬ 
denly tragic. “What shall I do?” she begged. “I 
can’t dance with a man whose shirt creaks! Can 
I?” 

Curiously, her farce began to carry conviction. 
By the necromancy of her rapid change from 
mirth to despair she made her dilemma real. 


[81 



TOWN AND GOWN 


Miss Watson was suggesting a remedy. Old 
Gabler put out a tentative finger and touched the 
creaking shirt cautiously. 

“I can hear it above the jazz,” mourned the 
girl. “I can’t keep step!” 

Then Miss Griffith yielded and laughed. 

Fannicott, alone, stood tightlipped and unre¬ 
sponsive, evincing an exaggerated interest in the 
loving cup he had previously considered as a mis¬ 
sile. But he couldn’t pretend to himself that she 
hadn’t won her audience. . . . The efficacy of 
joy—she’d proved that. He felt weak and wrung 
dry*of all mirth. She sapped it out of him with 
the squeezing, greedy fingers of youth. 

The baffied, surrendering look in the eyes of 
that big, hulking chap with the phlegmatic shoul¬ 
ders, towering above her slim, frail, hectic vivacity 
flung Fannicott into unbearable restlessness. He 
could not stay there. 

“Shall we dance?” he said to Miss Griffith, of¬ 
fering his arm. 

As they passed through the doorway he felt 
the girl looking up. He would not glance at her. 
He knew he was depriving her of the final capit¬ 
ulation she wilfully sought—his. He had no tri¬ 
umph in the knowledge, only pain. 

. . . Miss Griffith and Mr. Fannicott danced. 
They danced with an unusually emphatic sobriety. 
In contrast to the other dancers (youth and girl 
82] 


THE FACULTY 


clamped together so frankly) they appeared de¬ 
tached from each other—ludicrous and persis¬ 
tent enemies of cooperative grace. 

Fannicott knew it. He told himself that he 
did not care. He pumped her arm up and down 
in a manner he perceived was obsolete. He told 
himself that he would pump it up and down if 
he chose. ... A loping couple stared at them. 
... In and out of the confetti-hued scattering 
of dancers a bit of gold was threading now. She 
was still with Pewter Hughes. She had forgot¬ 
ten the creaking shirt. . . She passed intimately 
close to Fannicott, the iridescent feathers swoop¬ 
ing coolly near his cheek—the scent of her! It 
was very disturbing . . . she was languid, un¬ 
smiling. Her eyes were half-closed but they were 
fastened upon him, he thought. He shut his 
teeth hard and continued to labor through the 
side steps he knew looked antiquated, and to pump 
Miss Griffith’s limp arm up and down. 





Third Episode: 
THE FUSSER 


From the University Regulations: 

“Wherever women students reside 
they are expected to conform to the 
general regulations governing visit¬ 
ors 9 hours , social engagements and 
the like.” . . . 













Ill: The Fusser 


i 

A DMITTEDLY the champion fusser of a 
State University that made all of its 
activities competitive and insisted upon 
championships in everything, Andy Protheroe 
waited in a leather armchair in the huge parlor of 
the Y. W. C. A. dormitory. In a bedroom on the 
third floor exactly like all the other bedrooms 
on the second, third and fourth floors, Sylvia Cole 
was adding the final dab of face powder. It was 
the occasion of their date. 

The date was in a larger sense Sylvia Cole’s 
tryout. As a freshman handicapped by coming 
from the obscurity of an unknown downstate vil¬ 
lage, she had so far been ignored by the best fus- 
sers and during her five months at the State Uni¬ 
versity had never had a date with a “good man.” 

This date would determine whether or not she 
was a “good woman.” If she was, potentially at 
least,—Andy Protheroe considered it as he mused 
over the imitation logs in the fireplace—if she was 
potentially a good woman, then would he, cham- 

[87 


TOWN AND GOWN 

pion of fussers, see to it that she got on. He 
would introduce her to Dot Ambrose or Caris 
Dudley or other good women, would suggest her 
for sorority membership, would, in brief, pluck 
her from her present social mediocrity and place 
her in the university spotlight as “that cute little 
freshman Andy Protheroe dug up.” For it was 
just such foresight that had made Andy Prothe¬ 
roe the champion fusser of the State University. 

Sylvia Cole was cute and Andy believed that he 
had been the first officially to recognize that fact. 
He had described her just the day before to Perce 
Bainum in the A. O. G. house: 

“God, man, you ought to see her eyes—have 
sort of a look in them as if they’d never seen 
anything but trees. I’ll swear she doesn’t use 
rouge. In strong with the dean of women and all 
that sort of rot. Bashful as the devil, wonderful 
complexion, kind of a cute, turned-up nose, slim 
figure but good legs. . . and those great big blue 
eyes; they’re what take you. Kind of a kiddish 
girl, too.” 

From the standpoint of Sylvia Cole the date 
must have meant a rather nervous plunge into 
the unknown. What did he expect of her ? What 
was she to expect of him? She had heard of 
Andy Protheroe. Who hadn’t? 

All of her previous dates at the State Univer¬ 
sity had been with unknowns, non-f raternity men, 
88 ] 


THE FUSSER 

whom she had met at the twice-monthly “mixer” 
parties in the basement of the First Presbyterian 
church. 

These dates had sometimes resolved themselves 
into red-sweatered, Saturday afternoon hikes in¬ 
to the country, after which the party returned at 
dusk, the sexes awkwardly separating on the wide 
steps to the dormitory, after dividing the arm¬ 
loads of red and gold autumn leaves, with a quick, 
“My, hasn’t it all been jolly?” Or the three times 
that young Atkins, a sophomore who worked at 
the Y. M. C. A., had called for her at the dormi¬ 
tory, had escorted her to church via street car, 
had stopped in the large, well-lit parlor for a few 
moments after returning and had appended to his 
good-night, “Thank you, it certainly has been a 
wonderful evening, Miss Cole.” Or the after¬ 
noons between classes during the warm fall days 
when Aubrey Fremont, white-trousered and with 
a silk handkerchief tied about his hair, had taken 
her to play tennis, returning to stand upon the 
steps of the dormitory for a brisk moment and 
leaving her with a wave of his racket and a 
“Thanks so much. You certainly play a great 
little game, Miss Cole.” 

These were the only kind of dates she had 
known at the State University. But the other 
kind? She was fascinated and afraid: afraid of 
the shadows and the whispers and the low-slung 

[89 


TOWN AND GOWN 


cars, of sleek, haughty youths with tiny mous¬ 
taches who expected you to kiss them, of languid, 
sophisticated girls like Dot Ambrose who kissed 
coldly and technically—of petting. She had been 
too fascinated to refuse when the mighty Andy 
Protheroe had called her on the telephone a week 
after he had met her at a freshman party super¬ 
vised by upper classmen and asked her for “a 
little date at the Orph.” She was too afraid not 
to regret her acceptance. 

The date meant even more than Andy Prothe¬ 
roe and Sylvia Cole and the State University. It 
meant the clash of two social systems. 

The social system which Andy Protheroe rep¬ 
resented was rooted in his last year before enter¬ 
ing high school, the year that he was fourteen. He 
had walked home from the party with Mildred, 
who was also fourteen. They had sought shelter 
from the stars on the bench under the water tank. 
A foot of bench between them, they had sat si¬ 
lent, alone, afraid; for they had heard their eld¬ 
ers talk and they knew what was expected of 
them. Suddenly, awkwardly, he put his arm 
around her nervous shoulders. It was done! 

Two years later, when Andy was a sophomore 
in high school and sixteen, he could “love ’em up” 
without fear or hesitation. He was described by 
the high school girls as “cute” and deplored by 
their mothers as “horrid.” Under the trees at 
90] 


THE FUSSER 


dusk he sought his feminine prey and found them 
strolling arm-in-arm. In the pool hall he boasted 
of his adventures. 

At the State University as a freshman Andy 
developed a new “line”. He learned to use the 
term “pet” instead of “lovin’ up” and to “fuss” 
instead of “stall”. By the time he was a junior he 
was recognized as the best cheer leader and the 
best fusser the campus boasted. When his low- 
slung racer stood in front of a sorority house 
that house was honored. 

And, like all champions, Andy had his ethics. 
No one deplored more than he the occasional 
whispered tales of the disgrace of some Univer¬ 
sity girl; no one more than he spoke with virtuous 
anger of the suspected man. He had often told 
his fraternity brothers that kissing was as far as 
he would go with any girl; that is, a university 
girl. He was respectable. Some day, after he’d 
got out and mixed and had a good time, he would 
settle down and marry and father children. 

Sylvia Cole’s mother, back in the small town, 
would have called Andy Protheroe “horrid” if she 
had known him. She read the women’s maga¬ 
zines and believed in making the home so cheer¬ 
ful that her daughter wouldn’t want to be away 
evenings. She carefully supervised the parties 
to which Sylvia went and taught the girl that 
there was something wrong with any man who 

[9i 


TOWN AND GOWN 


didn't love children and dogs. Sylvia was al¬ 
lowed to receive “nice boys” at home, her mother 
smilingly leading the family out into the dining 
room and returning later during the evening with 
refreshments. There were two kinds of boys— 
those who were “nice” and those who weren't. 

Sylvia knew that Andy Protheroe wasn’t 
“nice.” She had accepted his proffered date be¬ 
cause she had been flattered by attention from one 
so great and because she was not just sure how to 
refuse gracefully. And she did want to be able 
to announce it to some of the other girls of the 
dormitory. 

She was nineteen and pretty. 

II 

She had dressed carefully. She had on the 
chemise that Aunt Ida had sent for Christmas, 
her black canton crepe and her fur coat. As 
she added the last touch of powder to her fore¬ 
head she had a final wave of dread pass over her 
that made her wish that she could find some ex¬ 
cuse to call it all off, or that she could talk to a 
Patsy Perdue who was (miraculously) as kindly 
as she was sophisticated. 

But as she looked into the mirror—the tur¬ 
ban effect was becoming to her—the fascination 
got the better of fear in her warring emotions. 
9 2] 


THE FUSSER 

She did look well. And. . . the prestige of a 
date with Andy Protheroe in the low-slung racer 

. . she just a freshman, too. . . a sorority, 
maybe? She did not want to offend him—if she 
could only be circumspect and at the same time 
tactful and pretty. . . to know just what to do! 

She came down the last flight of the broad, red- 
carpeted stairs. Andy Protheroe rose to greet 
her; tiny moustache, shell-rimmed spectacles, 
tight-fitting gray coat, silk gloves. 

“Greetings and all that old rot.” 

“Good evening,” she answered. 

Her reply seemed in the next second stupid 
and provincial compared with his cynically inter¬ 
ested look, his properly bored air, his ease and 
nonchalance, his atmosphere of that strange, fear¬ 
ful world of parchment-shaded lamps and shad¬ 
ows and whispers. All at once the new chemise 
and the canton crepe and the fur coat seemed in¬ 
finitely less attractive. 

And here she was stupidly silent after her stu¬ 
pid greeting! 

“Always poor stuff to ring in the weather in 
the first five minutes,” he was saying as he took 
her arm, “but the gods are sure with us this even¬ 
ing. Oh. . . pardon! Here, let me pick it up. 
II n’y a pas de qaoi. Wonder how the French 
get that way?” 

She was bewildered and feared that she 

[93 


TOWN AND GOWN 

showed it. She smiled and said quickly, as he 
opened the door, “My! I had the hardest quiz in 
chem to-day. Do you like chemistry ?” 

Andy Protheroe slowly disengaged his hand 
from her arm and drew himself up with mock 
solemnity. He stared at her with such a feigned 
expression of horror that she dropped her eyes. 

“What! Mentioning studies already? I can 
plainly see that I’m not getting over at all. Not 
at all” 

Now what should she answer? She was glad 
that they were out of the door where the darkness 
concealed her confusion. 

The long, low-slung automobile was, as Andy 
described it, “snuggly.” She found the lazy, lux¬ 
urious slope of the cushioned seat foreign to her 
tennis-hardened muscles and was glad at the roar 
of the exhaust and the first lurch of the car. She 
somehow wanted motion and the fanning of her 
cheeks by rushing night air. 

“All set?” He leaned toward her with sud¬ 
den solicitude. 

“Yes . . . thank you. What kind—that is, 
what make of an automobile is this ?” 

“Aha! I deduce, Watson, that the young lady 
may get out and walk if she finds out that we 
don’t pack a mean Rolls Royce. Is that the pre¬ 
mise?” 

“Oh, no! I—” Sylvia followed his conversa- 

94 ] 


THE FUSSER 


tion with difficulty. The mock solemnity of his 
eyes so close to her, misled her. “Why-” 

“Oh, you mean thing!” He threw hands up 
and simulated a mincing, feminine attitude. 
“Why, I shall slap you on the wrist, so there!” 

Sylvia laughed. She did not know exactly 
what else to do. 

She was glad when they pulled up at the curb 
in front of the theatre. 

She was proud, too, as he helped her to descend * 
with solicitude that was almost tender. The en¬ 
trance of the theater was blazing with lights and 
he did look like the pictures in the automobile 
advertisements in his suavity as he took her arm. 
It thrilled her to be seen by the group of nine or 
ten youths in front of the lobby entrance, all of 
whom seemed to be loungingly slender as they 
raised their hats in salutation. There were 
other couples waiting to buy tickets; their clothes, 
their speech, everything about them proclaimed 
them as different from the students she had 
known. There was a new lift to her chin now. 

“Hello, Andy, how come?” 

“Hello, there, Protheroe.” 

“Ay, Andy!” 

Everybody knew him, admired him. And she 
was with him! They had never looked at her that 
way before when she had been with Aubrey Fre¬ 
mont or young Atkins. 


[95 



TOWN AND GOWN 


Some tall, flashing girl in the furriest of fur 
coats had stopped him. 

“Say, Andy Protheroe, been hearing lots of 
things about you lately.” 

“Well, can you feature that?” 

They were in the center of a little group now, 
and he was introducing her to all of them, to all 
of these hitherto unknown gods and goddesses 
who wore the little, jeweled pins and spoke so 
easily that jargon of the other world. 

The audience was composed almost entirely of 
students. It was the first time that Sylvia had 
been with a man to either of the two vaudeville 
theaters which shared with dances the majority 
of the student dates. 

Andy flourished as he stood aside to allow her 
to pass to the further of the two seats. They 
were surrounded by chatting and gum-chewing 
couples. It was brave, gay. 

The house was darkened and the show began 
with a reel of news motion pictures: the funeral 
procession of the American diplomat who had 
died in Italy; the cabinet official smilingly shak¬ 
ing hands with the champion pugilist; the name 
“America” spelled out in human letters by sailors 
at drill on the decks of the battleship; the Parisian 
actress pulling up her skirt to show her jewelled 
knee-watch (ostentatious gasps from here and 
there in the darkness) ; the wreckage of colliding 
96] 


THE FUSSER 


trains near Scottsbluff, Nebraska; the grand pa¬ 
rade of the lodge convention in Spokane; the 
steeple-jack gilding the knob on an Atlanta flag¬ 
pole; the uncanny hand drawing upon the screen 
a popular newspaper cartoon strip, the denoue¬ 
ment of which was the flattening out of one of the 
characters with a sledgehammer wielded by the 
other. 

The vaudeville portion of the show began with 
the “Lorene Sisters” somersaulting on a slack 
wire before a blase audience. 

The next act was a dialogue between “Hal 
Crothers” and “Jane Bonnard,” the former being 
represented as highly intoxicated and the latter 
as an indignantly pretty young lady attired in a 
night-gown and chiding him from the vantage 
point of her bedroom window. 

She: How dare you! Say, my husband had a 
terrible experience while in Chicago last week. 

He: What was that ? 

She: Why, he went up to his room in the ho¬ 
tel and what do you think? 

He: Yes, yes, go on—hie!—go on! 

She: He found a very lovely young woman 
asleep in his bed. 

He: Terrible! And what did he do? 

She: Why, it was terribly inconveniencing. 
Poor man, he had to go down in the lobby and sit 

[97 


TOWN AND GOWN 


up in an armchair all night. Now what would 
you have done in such a case? 

He: I’d have done the same thing as your hus¬ 
band did, but I wouldn’t have lied about it! 

The act ended in a dance and after the dance 
he pulled a tassel at the bottom of her night robe, 
the front panel of which ascended like a curtain 
to reveal zebra-striped black and orange hose. 

Next came a one-act musical comedy, the theme 
of which was the love of twelve girl models for 
the French proprietor of a dress-making estab¬ 
lishment on Broadway. It ended with the reap¬ 
pearance of each girl attired in the colors of some 
nation, singing the national air. The last and 
prettiest came out in a red, white and blue flag; 
the orchestra played The Star Spangled Banner 
while the audience struggled indifferently to 
arise. Tremendous applause from the gallery. 

The three Dejongue Sisters followed, skipping 
here and there in time to their xylophones. This 
act ended with the playing on bottles of Home 
Sweet Home in jazz syncopation. 

The Egyptian Dancers, ostensibly bare from 
the waist tip, except for brass plates over their 
breasts, wriggled toward the front of the stage 
in accompaniment to sensual music and drums. 
The darkened house responded now with face¬ 
tious male comment: “Hot dog!” l#J . “Oh, 
Boy!” . . . “Sweet Papa!” 

98] 


THE FUSSER 


A one-act play: The capitulation of the Wall 
Street husband to the vampire (in the tight black 
and red gown conventional with “vampires”) and 
the triumph of the plump, blonde wife who wins 
him back by arousing his jealousy. At the end 
of the skit it developed that she had been flirting 
with her brother—the husband was mollified, the 
black and red fiend chastened, the brother wel¬ 
comed and the blonde happy. The play ended 
with a song and dance by the pacific four. 

Sylvia Cole enjoyed it all. The laughter of the 
other couples about her seemed to sanction the 
dialogue; besides, she had been with her mother 
to the same sort of things on visits to the city. 
She might have slapped any youth who would 
have had the temerity to have addressed similar 
remarks to her, but they seemed only mildly shock¬ 
ing and not out of place in a vaudeville show. 

Andy, the sophisticated, began putting on his 
gloves at the beginning of the last act—“Brown 
and McCabe’s Performing Cats.” Sylvia fol¬ 
lowed his cue. The girls about her were donning 
their furs, too. 

From the theater they went to the You’ll Come 
Inn, a basement establishment with wooden 
tables, latticed booths and parchment-shaded 
lamps. Most of the other couples were going 
there from the theater. Sylvia had never been in 
the place before. She ate ice cream every day 

[99 


TOWN AND GOWN 

but usually at the confectionery stores near the 
campus. 

“Foul ball joint,” Andy said apologetically as 
he held her chair with deference. “There isn’t a 
real cabaret in the town.” 

Sylvia agreed with him but she was really 
thrilled by the place—the dim lights, the other 
couples in the booths turning off the table lamps 
when the proprietor wasn’t watching; the jazz 
music and the entertainer in evening suit singing.. 
Andy Protheroe was humming the chorus with 
him. 

Ma! He’s making eyes at me! 

As he sat across the table from her—tiny mous¬ 
tache, shell-rimmed spectacles, extreme cravat, 
cigarette—he reminded Sylvia of the “society” 
pictures she had seen in the rotogravure section 
of the Sunday newspapers. She was glad now 
that she had gone out with him, except- 

What would be next? What would he expect 
of her? Her nervousness, almost forgotten dur¬ 
ing the show, returned with these self-asked 
questions. She dropped her eyes when he looked 
at her. Several remarks that she had planned 
while in the theatre completely escaped her and 
she was rendered more impotent by her own si¬ 
lence. 

“You’re pretty.” He leaned forward until his 
face was close to hers, 
ioo] 



THE FUSSER 


“Am I? Oh, nor 

Under the pink-shaded lamp, her lips were sen¬ 
sitive, unguarded. She toyed with her glass. 

The waiter came with the fifty cent check. 
Andy paid it and left a quarter on top of his care¬ 
fully crushed napkin as a tip. 

“All set?” 

“Yes.” 

Ill 

The touch of his fingers was lingering as he 
helped her into the car. They started. The sud¬ 
den contact of their shoulders as the car lurched 
made Sylvia almost shrink. In another moment 
they were off Court Street and into one of the 
darkly lit residence streets where there were 
three or four large wooden houses to the block, 
most of them already darkened for the night. 

“Not afraid of me, Mouse?” Andy’s face was 
only a few inches from hers. 

“No.” She forced herself to look up at him. 

“Why!” His arm was slipping unobtrusively 
about her shoulder. “Mademoiselle couldn’t be 

afraid of the timid Andy Protheroe-” His arm 

was about her now and his talk was more forced 
and rapid, as if he were afraid she would notice. 
“Why, I’m the most bashful man in University. 
Ask anybody.” 

They drove along in silence for a moment. Her 

[ioi 



TOWN AND GOWN 


throat felt nerveless and dry as the tips of his 
fingers patted her neck gently. His arm was 
tighter about her now. She saw that they were 
near her dormitory. Half a block away under 
the dark outline of a tree which leaned silently 
over the pavement, he stopped the car. His 
words were tense in spite of their attempted 
facetiousness. 

“Say, youVe showed me a good time to-night. 
I like you, Mouse—and you know that Andy Pro- 
theroe bears a reputation for veracity that has 

never been assailed-” His face was but a few 

inches from hers now and she could feel his quick 
breath. “Just one > Mouse—honestly, I couldn’t 
help that. It’s your fault, Mouse, for being so 
pretty.” 

He had kissed her before he spoke. She sat 
silent, her gloved hands in her lap, unmoving. 
Her eyes were expressionless in the dimness and 
were fixed on the darkness of the skyline. Her 
lips seemed paralyzed, oblivious. She wanted to 
respond with ease or sophistication or anger or 
pleasure—anything. But she seemed incapable 
of any response. 

He had moved closer now and had his other 
arm about her. His words were suave and fast 
and meaningless but she did not seem to hear him. 
It all seemed to her like some sort of a strange 
farce with herself as an onlooker, unable to pre- 
102] 




THE FUSSER 


vent anything said or done by the actors. He was 
kissing her again—twice. 

She was not afraid—or was she? It was merely 
that she did not know what to do, what was ex¬ 
pected of her! yes, that was it. For a moment 
she wanted to please him. But what? How? 

“Kiss me, Mouse. Be a cute, funny rabbit. 
You are one, you know. . . . Afraid?” 

He had removed one arm from about her 
shoulder and had taken her hand. “What’s the 
matter, Mouse? You’re all right. Look at me 
once, won’t you?” 

He had gently twisted her head about until his 
face was but a few inches away. He kissed her 
again. Her lips were still. Her eyes looked into 
his blankly. Her hand lay tense and motionless 
in his. 

For a moment neither of them moved. Then 
Andy Protheroe, his arms suddenly panic- 
stricken, disengaged himself. 

“For the love of John!” he exclaimed in a 
hoarse whisper. “What’s the matter?” 

He helped her alight from the car and without 
a word they walked the half block to the dormi¬ 
tory and went up the broad stone steps. He was 
saying something as the door opened but it was all 
vague to her. Once it flashed through her numb 
mind that she had been stupid and that he would 
never ask her for a date again. 

[103 


* 




V 










Fourth Episode: 
GIRLS WHO PET 


From the History of the University: 

“On Feb. 9, 18—, the Trustees 
voted to admit women students. 
Since that time they have consti¬ 
tuted from one-sixth to one-fifth of 
the total number of students 




IV: Girls Who Pet 


i 

T HE four of them were silent, each out¬ 
line in the darkness of the fraternity’s 
piazza only quickened as with staccato ac¬ 
cent by the repeated glow of his cigarette. 

Across the street, the Pi Omegas were giving 
a dance. The breathless, book-laden creatures 
who had fled down the street this morning in pur¬ 
suit of eight o’clocks, had been transformed by 
the unmagical necromancy of cosmetics, silks, and 
lantern-glow. Green and mauve and rose and 
gold moths, they fluttered now behind half-drawn 
shades about the music as though it were an ir¬ 
resistible candle. 

The three glowing cigarettes and the one cigar 
on the fraternity piazza watched meditatively. 

The music stopped and the shadows across the 
street burst as if with sparks into a clapping of 
hands and little shrieks and laughter. Two by 
two, always two by two, there were forms who 
passed now under the Chinese lanterns out into 
the blackness of the lawn. One pair came fur- 

[107 


TOWN AND GOWN 


tively across the pavement and stopped in front of 
the unlighted fraternity piazza. A moment they 
stood silently apart, then her whiteness merged 
into his blackness. A long tense silence and a 
quick laugh. They separated and went back 
across the street where they soon gleamed cream 
and black under the Pi Omega lanterns. 

“Most all of ’em pet, I guess.” 

“All the pretty ones.” 

“Some do one night and don’t the next—god¬ 
dam funny!” 

The three opinions came from the cigarettes. It 
was the turn of the cigar. Behind the cigar was 
Andy Protheroe—twenty-four and a senior. At 
last he leaned over the rail and spat. He spoke 
as one tacitly acknowledged the best fusser on 
the campus. 

“All of ’em pet. Good women. Poor women. 
All of ’em.” 

Glowing expectantly, the three cigarettes 
waited. 

“If a girl doesn’t pet, a man can figure he 
didn’t rush ’er right . . . Even a flapper likes 
romance. A man makes a mistake to depend on 
his line and overlook the moon.” 

From the cigarettes, applauding laughter. 

“Use your line for the first deal—sure. The 
wit scintillates, the mean phrase grabs attention. 
It’s a game—sure—but you’ve got to make her 
108] 



GIRLS WHO PET 


forget that. The professional flapper c'n stack the 
cards while you cut the deck." The cigar went 
out while Andy puffed enthralling rings of rhet¬ 
oric. “She reneges 'nd you call 'er—you might 
as well quit. She stops playin' because you 
watched the rules too close. . . . No, forget the 
game yourself. Don't be afraid to let that 'ach¬ 
ing, unguarded note' slip into your voice. You 
both know you’re both pretending—sure. Col¬ 
lege is a hard, sordid, practical kind of place 'nd 
petting is its substitute for romance." 

He struck a match. The sudden flare illu¬ 
mined a lazily handsome face with coy moustache 
and striking eyes. “Say I'm taking geology with 
Caris Dudley. Everybody knows 'er. Is she a 
first-night petter?" 

Was she? . . . Nobody knew. 


II 

It was later known that the night Caris Dudley 
was supposed to lead the spring prom with 
Pewter Hughes she had a date with Andy Prothe- 
roe, and the way of it was this: 

Caris Dudley had been “playing" with Pewter 
Hughes since the night she wore her gold dress 
at a formal dinner and chanced to be seated next 
to him. 

Hughes was a foot-ball hero, named on two all- 

[109 


TOWN AND GOWN 


star elevens and the prototype of huge blue prints 
displayed in all tobacco shops and university sup¬ 
ply stores. Prexy would have been alarmed to 
receive one half the applause that Pewter Hughes 
was accorded at mass meetings. Pewter hated 
mass meetings but he liked the applause and he 
boggled through innumerable halting “pep- 
raisers”, his face red and his hands desperately 
concealed in his pockets, perceiving that no mat¬ 
ter what he said or how he said it he was ac¬ 
corded unmitigated enthusiasm. 

He was very big, very clumsy, slow of motion 
and of speech. Wearing his halo slightly aslant, 
with awkwardness and good nature, he neither 
courted nor deprecated adulation. He was too 
lazy to collect the clippings about himself in the 
city papers. If his mother saw his pictures in 
the Sunday supplements she had to buy them her¬ 
self. He was easily frightened by instructors and 
when they spoke to him about his appalling cuts 
and shockingly illiterate papers, he was humble 
and ashamed. And pitying his ineptitude, they 
lost their irritation at the assumption of the Ad¬ 
ministration that leniency would be shown to Mr. 
Hughes during the fall season at least. 

Caris Dudley had been first attracted by the 
halo of Pewter Hughes. The night she wore her 
golden gown and triumphantly beheld his easy 
capitulation she told herself that having devoted 
no] 


GIRLS WHO PET 


so much time recently to the study of Japanese 
verse she deserved the rather vacuous amusement 
of flirting with a gridiron god. Later she found 
that bigness without brains appealed to her vastly. 
Although in his absence she patronized his mem¬ 
ory, in his presence she found it difficult to 
achieve superciliousness. His very obtuseness de¬ 
feated her. He made it plain that he prized her 
the less because she was admittedly intelligent* 
Pewter had his own ideas about women. 

She read him a poem once and he looked vague 
and indulgent. After she had finished he told her 
how he was going to broil beefsteak on a red-hot 
stone at his fraternity picnic. 

“But wasn't it nice?" 

“What—nice?" 

“My villanelle." 

“Your—which?" 

“My villanelle." 

“I want to kiss it." 

“Don't be silly—an awfully crude joke, too, 
Pewter." 

“Don't you like me to be crude?" 

“No." 

“Want me to be like that little guy you step 
out with—what's his name?—that little bit of a 
guy that writes all the bull for the magazine? 
I can't understand it. I hope you can." 


[m 


TOWN AND GOWN 

“You can’t because you’re a dumb-bell, Pew¬ 
ter.” 

“I’m a dumb-bell, am I? So you really think 
I’m a dumb-bell. I’d better not come any more. 
You’re nutty about these highbrows, Dud.” 

“Don’t be nasty. Kiss me and stop talking. 
You really oughtn’t talk, you know.” 

Somewhat pacified—he did not trouble to un¬ 
derstand innuendo—“Do you love me?” 

“Of course I love you. And you love beef¬ 
steak, so we’re perfectly happy.” 

“Damn right I love beefsteak., . . . Comfy?” 

“Mm—hm.” 

Thus Pewter in his most abominable vein. If 
Caris Dudley mused upon such conversations af¬ 
terward she thought of them with disgust, but 
she usually remembered other things when he was 
gone. Of how he had seemed like a little boy 
when she stroked his hair—how tightly he had 
held her—how he trembled—how they had stood 
in the dark hall watching the spring rain—the 
lights of cars splashing undulating pools of gold 
on the wet pavement—she had pretended to be 
afraid of lightning and he snuggled her inside his 
great, rough coat, calling her a funny baby kit¬ 
ten. 

She wished she knew what his reactions were 
at times like these. Or had he reactions? She 
kept hoping his silences held mysterious, un- 
112] 


GIRLS WHO PET 


dreamed-of depths, yet she knew such hopes were 
the stuff of illusion. She was accustomed now 
to hiding her dreams from men, or if she flung 
out strange fancies recklessly she was inured to 
the crassness of the affectionate replies: 

“—such a queer little sweetie, aren’t you, Dud? 
Clever little girl! Can’t say / ever thought those 
buildings were like ‘humped camels.’ How do 
you think up such funny things, eh?” 

She supposed there were men, instructors or 
post graduates, maybe, who responded delight¬ 
fully to the poetic mood but she was afraid of 
their learning which seemed so often to engender 
in them the smile cynical or condescending. And 
there was a self she had which Pewter Hughes 
and his type came nearer to pleasing—a self 
which clamored for lights and color and jazz 
music, a syncopated self with overtones of mad¬ 
ness. 

She believed in rouge and her powder-box; in 
the wisdom of Prexy and the Grand Council of 
her sorority; in the State University’s football 
team and in the integrity of all deans but the 
Dean of Women; she believed that most girls 
were cats and that all men wanted to kiss her; 
she loved some of her relatives and would have 
sworn that her brothers were virtuous; she be¬ 
lieved newspapers to be ethical, socialists altru¬ 
istic, writers temperamental and hoboes, train- 

[113 


TOWN AND GOWN 

robbers and gypsies to be romantic. Most of all 
she believed in her own immediate success after 
graduation. 

Over her study table she had pinned Dowson’s 
verses: 

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, 
Love and desire and hate, 

I think they have no portion in us after 
We pass the gate. 

She maintained that she would never marry; 
but if a man was handsome enough she won¬ 
dered during his introduction if she hadn’t better 
marry him. Pewter Hughes, not being sufficiently 
handsome, called many times before she began 
to wonder. At last she considered the inevitable 
question (she was amused to think how horrified 
Pewter Hughes would be at the word “marriage,” 
but numerous conquests had made her vain of her 
power) and her consideration was fraught with 
conditionings for herself and apologies for Pew¬ 
ter. 

“If I had my career made I could afford to 
marry a man like that. . . . He’s so big I’d be 
proud of him. What if he doesn’t understand— 
anything?—his voice is terribly tender when he 
calls me ‘baby kitten’—his hair feels like silky 
plush at the back—dances smoothly for such a 
big chap . . . can imagine us at a smart soiree: 
‘Look charming together, don’t they?’ ‘She just 
114] 


GIRLS WHO PET 


comes up to his lapels!’ . . . can imagine us at 
dinner in our little apartment—he’d look dear 
serving—a room of my own where I could write 
and he couldn’t come. . . . him pounding at the 
door: ‘Sweetheart, aren’t you through? I want 
to kiss you!’ ” She carried marital scenes no 
further than kissing or perhaps the scared 
thought of undressing the first night. The text ' 
of her sophistication contained many ellipses. 

As her imagination progressed she became 
more sensitive to Pewter’s moods. She detected 
a recurrent moroseness in him. . . . “His eye¬ 
lashes are so light, too! Could I marry a man 
like that?” 

One of his absences was longer than all the rest* 
She actually worried about the prom* “And my 
new black gown! I wish I hadn’t bought that red 
feather fan—could he be boorish enough 
to-? 

“Funny. I never had a man act this way be¬ 
fore. Too much petting, maybe? But I’ve tried 
not letting him—and that time I had to call him 
up. ... I look absolutely vampish in that black 
dress. After the prom he’ll be different.” 

He did not come until the night before the 
dance. 

“Oh, you bad boy! What do you mean by treat¬ 
ing your kitten so badly?” She hadn’t meant to 
accuse him, but it was all she could think of to say. 

[ii5 



TOWN AND GOWN 


She tried not to look reproachful. “Is it cold 
enough for an overcoat? Oh, it’s raining. You're 
all wet. Put your things by the radiator.” The 
little silence while he emerged bulkily from the 
big rough coat she loved quivered like a taut 
nerve. 

They faced each other in the living room which 
her family had hastily abandoned (she lived at 
home). She was angry to find herself a bit 
breathless and awkward. “Sit over here and dry 
off,” she said sulkily and after poking the grate 
fire, sat across the room from him. 

In the firelight his face had a heavy, swollen 
appearance. He looked at her absently and with¬ 
out the proper penitence, she thought. “Had 
three quizzes; been working like the devil; flunk¬ 
ing everything,” he said, as if it bored him to 
explain. He seemed to feel that this final delin¬ 
quency really deserved a few words of apology. 

She saw no reason to believe his excuse. 

“That isn’t it,” she said, angry-eyed, “but it 
doesn’t matter.” 

“What do you mean—'that isn’t it?’ ” 

“I said it didn’t matter.” 

“What do you mean 'it don’t matter?’ ” 

She was silent. 

He sat for a long time looking into the fire. 
Then he looked at her. He made the only over¬ 
ture he knew how to make: walked over to her 
116] 


GIRLS WHO PET 


and drew her up, peremptorily into arms that al¬ 
lowed no refusal. She pushed at his shoulders 
futilely, whispering the accusations she had 
thought out before he came. He did not hear 
them. He was kissing her. She had not meant 
to let him kiss her. . . . His mouth held hers for 
long moments. The trembling of his body sent 
little torrents of weakness through her. She 
yielded to the moment, eyes closed, thoughts 
wheeling like gnats in meaningless flight. One 
thought whirled past her many times—“What 
am I ? What am I ? What am I ?” 

After it was over she said, “Don’t.” For an¬ 
swer he drew her back again, more fiercely than 
before. He was no longer a senior, a refractory 
boy, a football player, a hulk or a dumb-bell. 

“What do you want, Pewter? What do you— 
expect? Why do you act so funny—lately? 
Can’t you tell me, Pewter?” 

“I don’t know. Do I act funny? Guess I’m 
sort of crazy. . . . Caris, can I carry you over 
to the couch like we do sometimes—like you were 
a little bit of a girl?” 

She felt slim and helpless as he took her in his 
big arms and placed her carefully, tenderly, 
down in the dim corner of the couch. She lay 
there silent as he crowded up beside her until his 
cheek was against her arm. He was possessed 
now by a surprising coolness and a brutal honesty. 

[ii 7 


TOWN AND GOWN 


She listened to what he told her with a detach¬ 
ment that was poised and mature. She under¬ 
stood all that he said—she understood more than 
he said. 

“So you went to those places when—when you 
didn’t come here?” 

“Yes, you don’t know how it is, Dud. You 
don’t know how a man feels.” 

“Well, I think maybe I do.” She spoke slowly 
and was careful not to move lest she startle him 
out of his mood of confession. . . . She had 
wanted the truth and now she had it. “And you 
felt the same way with me as with those—wo¬ 
men ?” 

“Yes. I did. I do. But I’m all right now 
—I don’t feel that way now.” He spoke cheer¬ 
fully, hopefully. 

She felt a curious need of hiding everything 
she thought from him and so she answered gen¬ 
tly, “I’m glad”; and suggested as gently that he 
had better go—she had a headache. 

. . . Under the street lamp she watched him 
striding away with his peculiar bumbling walk 
—she used to love the clumsy bigness of those 
strides. And when he came out on the football 
field, a blanketed giant! And everybody around 
on the bleachers pointing her out as the girl Pew¬ 
ter Hughes was rushing. One after another she 
let the little pangs of remembrance prick her be- 
118] 


GIRLS WHO PET 


fore she went back to face the ugly part. . . . 
It was right here in the hall they had stood when 
it rained—it was raining now. She thought the 
reflected street lights were drowned, golden gob¬ 
lets . . . they shimmered murkily in pools of 
black, spilled wine . . . Pewter wouldn’t have 
known what she meant. 

She felt infinitely older. . . . He had thought 
she wouldn’t understand. But she had realized 
that men were like that—it pleased her to be tol¬ 
erant, to believe that she understood “how a man 
feels.” He could have told no other girl. She 
had aroused a new, beautiful quality of honesty 
in him. . . . Didn’t she even feel a guilty little 
thrill at his hinted adventures over in the dark, 
mysterious quarter of the town? . . . Still she 
felt degraded. She did not realize how much 
until the tears started suddenly to run, hot and 
unchecked, down her cheeks. She stood in the 
doorway and looked with blurred eyes at blurred 
lights and blurred pavements. Her thoughts 
were blurred, too. Why was she unhappy? Was 
it because Pewter had looked so virtuous and 
smug when he said, “I’m all right now. I don’t 
feel that way now?” Or because of the spring 
rain and the sadness of its murky pools? Or be¬ 
cause she was through with petting forever and 
forever and forever? 


TOWN AND GOWN 


hi 

It was a weary and monotonous voice that an¬ 
swered Pewter’s telephone call the next evening.. 
“The prom. No, I’m not going to the prom.... 
Oh, no, Pewter, I’m really not going. Please 
don’t argue. . . . And don’t tell me I have to 
because I don’t have to. . . . No, I don’t give 
a damn about the looks of it.” 

Her “damn”, she thought, was the only thing 
that rescued the conversation from being dis¬ 
gustingly sophomoric. Because her mother be¬ 
gan a long and tiresome lecture on swearing, 
Caris went out upon the porch. She sat in the 
porch swing. . . . She wished she hadn’t bought 
the expensive scarlet feather fan. ... It was 
Spring. Drops of stars seeping out on the pale 
sky like delicate bubbles. The too-sweet smell of 
the lilac hedge. Not dark yet. A banjo playing. 

“They are not long, the weeping and the laugh¬ 
ter -” 

When the taxis started going by to the prom 
she would go inside. 

Andy Protheroe, passing briskly, began to 
saunter when he saw Caris Dudley on the porch. 
Of course, it seemed almost mysterious for her 
to be sitting there when she was supposed to lead 
the grand march with Pewter Hughes at nine 
o’clock. 

I20] 



GIRLS WHO PET 


She did not move from her hunched posture as 
he came up the walk, but she allowed her eyes to 
smile at him. As he crossed the porch he said: 

“Greetings, old thing, and all that rot! How 
are you this evening ?” 

“Low.” 

“So low you'd have to stand on a box to whisper 
to a duck! I can perceive the lowness in Ma¬ 
demoiselle's dreamy eyes. Why has the pretty 
maid descended to this deplorable depression?” 
He spoke fluently and with the grandness of 
many-syllabled words as became a cheer-leader, 
amateur actor and dramatic critic. A man, in 
fact, who was known as a card. (Pewter could 
not have fathomed one-half of Protheroe's vocab¬ 
ulary. She felt an unreasoning nostalgia for 
Pewter’s dull speech.) 

“With my usual meticulous deduction I sur¬ 
mise that Miss Caris Dudley will not trip the light 
fantastic ce soir?” 

“No, she will not, Andy.” (Why did he use 
the third person ? Why did he pull that bromide 
about the light fantastic? Why did he insert his 
rotten French?) 

“Permit me to exhibit Protheroe’s famous 
brand of unerring tact and refrain from asking 
questions. Questions are the most dangerous 
form of rhetoric. They should be seen, not 
heard. Answered but never asked.” 

[ 121 


TOWN AND GOWN 


“That means you want me to answer ?” 

“No, I should much prefer to talk about the 
moon. Look!” 

He pointed to a great, crimson, Chinese moon 
that glided out with Oriental grace from behind 
a screen of pine trees. 

Caris looked up at it with sick eyes. She 
wanted something—she didn’t know what. Pew¬ 
ter was a dumb-bell. Andy was a slicker* 
Neither of them should talk. The snugly inti¬ 
mate room of silence closed them round. She let 
herself—forced herself to forget his facetious 
voice, his unfortunate cleverness. 

What was he saying? She faced him curi¬ 
ously. His handsome eyes were reaching for 
hers. Wearily, she watched his hand steal toward 
her own, hesitate with wise uncertainty, pretend 
something or other, then take up her listless 
finger-tips . . . now her whole hand. 

“Caris-” his voice was muffled and low . •„ 

so much better that way. He did not continue— 
then he did know the value of silence? 

She looked up at the moon again and wondered 
if somewhere—inside of her somewhere, maybe 
—she were haggard and old and gnarled and 
bent and brown. 

He was whispering the name again and in his 
whisper there was something that made it sound 
strangely fresh and young—“Caris . (#1 . Caris ?” 
122] 



GIRLS WHO PET 


He made it all appear new again . . . cautiously 
silent, almost imperceptibly sliding toward her 
. t.i his fingers just touching the profile of her 
cheek . . . his fingers—tenderly—lingeringly— 
tracing the outlines of her lips. 

He—who was he? She had nearly forgotten* 
She liked the faintly acrid smell of cigar smoke, 
the familiar feel of rough cloth, the insistence of 
the arm—something male and strong and even¬ 
tual. 

She closed her eyes suddenly and with tired pre¬ 
cision let her head droop into the little hollow she 
knew would be between his shoulder and his 
coat lapel* 


[123 


Fifth Episode: 

YELLOW 


From the description of University 
Activities: “The University au¬ 
thorities encourage sports on the 
athletic field in such amount and of 
such character as is compatible 
\with the higher objects of the Uni¬ 
versity 


I 




V: Yellow 


i 


MONG tins of cosmetics on the littered 



dresser the tiny and beribboned alarm 


"^clock of imitation ivory (a souvenir 
d’amour cherished in pride of conquest) tinkled 
more and more haltingly until it finally ran down. 
Its ornate and inefficient hands indicated the half 
after six. But its clamor had been futile; for 
Pewter Hughes was already awake and had been 
for more than an hour. 

Rolled up within the covers like a huge worm 
he lay silent, his blinking eyes vaguely on the open 
window. Pewter Hughes was thinking. 

Sounds of Saturday morning drifted up from 
the street. Here the dismal “woomp-ah” of a 
bass horn—some proud bandsman getting ready 
for his part in the march across the field, of the 
pennanted, khaki-clad musicians. Three cars, 
one after another, hummed past—alumni or pa¬ 
rents arriving early. That sound—so distant 
that it must have come from the uptown district 
—a hawker selling souvenirs, buttons and horns. 


[127 


TOWN AND GOWN 


Each noise was slowly translated in the bulky 
mind of Pewter Hughes, his beefy brow wrink¬ 
ling in accompaniment. It was the day of the 
game and Pewter Hughes was the best halfback 
the State University had ever cheered. 

The statistics could be had in any cigar store 
in eleven states of the Cornbelt: 

“Pewter Hughes? Trim ’em alone. Betcha. 
Weighs two hundred ten and can step a hundred 
in ten one, at that. When he smashes into ’em— 
Gawd!—oh, man! Sure, been picked on two all 
American elevens. He’s a heller an’ no mistake.” 

Pewter Hughes at 6.30 on the morning of the 
big game was not unaware of these facts. He 
had seen a picture of himself in the Sunday sup¬ 
plements of every newspaper in the middle west. 
He had seen six thousand fellow students at a 
pep meeting rise in one worshipful mass and yell 
hoarse adoration at him. He had received the 
handshake and congratulations of the unapproach¬ 
able Prexy. He had been feted, flattered, pointed 
out—why, even the highbrows had written poems 
comparing him to Greek gods and such stuff. 

But there was the rub. Pewter Hughes was 
too well aware. 

He could not cast from his mind the picture 
of a fat, prize-winning steer he had once seen. 
What had they fed, brushed, admired and ex¬ 
hibited this steer for? Umph, Pewter Hughes 
128] 


YELLOW 

knew now! His little eyes blinked in impotent 
anger as he thought of the stands in the new 
stadium. 

“Thirty thousand of ’em an’ not a one of ’em 
ever take any more exercise than climbin’ on a 
street car. An’ them yellin’ me on and a-cussin’ 
me if I don’t win for ’em! Why don’t they get 
out an’ try it once—they’d see what it was.” 

He and twenty-one other fools like him— 
trained, trained, trained—beaten out of all the 
good things of life . . . women, beer, beefsteak. 
The sissies! 

How every one in the University had guarded 
him—instructors, girls, fraternity brothers, 
everybody. Guarded him, why ? Damn ’em, why 
did they guard that fat steer? Pewter Hughes’ 
eyes blinked fast—yes, why did they guard that 
steer ? 

He felt a sudden resentment toward Coach 
Shifty Miles and the rest of the team. Why 
couldn’t some of them help him shoulder that 
fearful, haunting responsibility of satisfying 
the crowds all over the country who would wait 
that afternoon at bulletin boards and newspaper 
offices and telegraph stations—greedy for win¬ 
ning—nothing but winning would satisfy them. 

“Why d’l hafta be the whole damn team?” 

Pewter Hughes’ thick lower lip, slightly 
scarred in one corner where the foot of an oppos- 

[129 


TOWN AND GOWN 


ing tackle had once struck him squarely in the 
mouth, twitched in huge self-pity as he thought of 
his freshman days in the State University. How 
he used to think football was a game where you 
had lots of fun. Game— hell! 

Yes, he had started out well in the University. 
Studied hard . . . going to be an accountant or 
something. Those jobs paid big and people 
looked up to you there. Then they got hold of 
him and put him on the freshman football team. 
Made him stand up against the regulars “to de¬ 
velop nerve”. Yeh, kicked him around like he 
was a dirty dog. Like to killed him sometimes. 

He recalled how he had first broken into the 
game as a regular during his sophomore year. 
How he “knocked 'em dead” as a junior. This 
year—captain. 

And what had become of his studies in the Col¬ 
lege of Commerce? During the football season 
they had been easy on him whether he studied or 
not; then the other students had helped him crib 
in quizzes, helped him by writing out his lessons 
bodily for him, helped him so thoroughly that he 
hadn't learned a thing—“Not a cussed thing!” 

Yes, they'd ruined him—ruined him—just so 
he could win for them during that sixty minutes 
this afternoon. Darn little they cared. All he 
could do now after he graduated was get a job 
coaching some one-horse college team; and then 

130], 



YELLOW 


some year the team would lose a game or two and 
he’d be out looking for another job. That was 
the way it went. You had to win—win—win! 
Why couldn’t they have let him alone? 

Pewter Hughes felt a weakness in his stomach 
amounting almost to nausea—nothing like his 
usual morning hunger—as he finally threw his 
heavy limbs over the edge of the bed and began 
to dress. Even his resentment vanished. He 
wished vaguely that he could hurry unnoticed 
from the pavement and the crowds and the game 
to some cool, moist, dark spot out in silent woods 
where he could bury himself and hide—yes, 


The way in which Coach Shifty Miles called 
Pewter Hughes to one side after breakfast was a 
masterpiece of tact—quiet, easy, unobtrusive. 
“Sure looking fit this morning, Pewt, old man.” 

Pewter Hughes was silent and sullenly lowered 
his eyes. 

“Yep,” the coach continued, “you’re going to 
play the game of your life today. Knock ’em 
dead. Eh?” 

“Sure.” 

But there was neither sureness nor hope nor 
peace in the monosyllable. Pewter Hughes knew 
it. He knew that the coach, who was paid a sal- 

[131 


TOWN AND GOWN 


ary twice that of any professor for knowing such 
things, also knew it. The athletic mentor tried 
a different tack, lowering his voice confidentially. 

“Pewt, you’re just a little bit stale. And there’s 
only one person on God’s green earth who can 
help you out of it. That’s yourself. Just for¬ 
get your nerves—nobody would believe you had 
any, anyhow, Pewt. Do something—anything 
you want to—to get over this strain.” 

Pewter Hughes looked up suddenly. The 
coach was a small man. For one moment he felt 
a quick, terrible impulse to crush him between 
his huge hands, to hurl him to the cement floor, 
where he would lie still and bloody, and to tell him 
all the things he had been thinking that morning. 
But the coach looked at him long and steadily 
and Pewter Hughes felt a return of the weak, 
sickly feeling. 

His face at once became the unguarded face 
of a small boy. His red, pale-fringed eyelids 
blinked. He stuttered. 

‘‘Honest to God, Coach, I got to get away from 
here somewhere. Let me be alone. Take a walk 
—maybe. Get away from thinking about this 
game. You know it ain’t because Pm afraid of 
getting hurt. Pm just goddam scared stiff I 
might not be good.” 

Coach Shifty Miles, himself an all-star quarter- 

132] 


YELLOW 


back during his college days, smiled with apparent 
ease and indulgence. 

“Why, there isn’t anything the matter with 
you, Pewt. You’re just too anxious to win. 
Sure, suppose you forget all about football this 
morning. Go out with Protheroe for a little spin 
in the country. Do what you please—long as 
you take care of yourself—and report back to me 
at twelve.” 

. . . Andy Protheroe, considered by many the 
most skillful fusser of the State University, was 
known also as the best cheer leader that had ever 
incited hoarse crowds. Facing the stands with a 
megaphone almost the size of himself, his jigs, 
handsprings and imitations were, so the student 
daily newspaper had once said, “productive of 
great pep”. 

Beside Pewter Hughes in the roadster, Pro¬ 
theroe looked unusually slender, dapper, well- 
groomed. The football star was sullen and 
moody. He wore an old gymnasium sweater and 
a cap. 

The conversation opened with sparkling alac¬ 
rity. Andy Protheroe was “in good” with Coach 
Miles and he had been given his instructions. 

“Wow! Oh, man! See that woman? Don’t 
tell me these suburbs don’t put out some good 
women. Pewter, we’re overlooking some good 
bets out here.” 


[133 


TOWN AND GOWN 


“Huh!” Pewter Hughes grunted wearily. They 
-vere turning to one side of the narrow, suburban 
street while four or five mud-splashed automo¬ 
biles, en caravan, passed. All of the automobiles 
were gayly decorated with pennants upon which 
the name of the State University was inscribed 
across a football. One of the occupants of the 
last car recognized Pewter Hughes and waved. 

“Great little car, that last one,” Protheroe com¬ 
mented, uneasily. “Sure the berries for eating up 
the old dirt, n’est-ce pas?” 

“Huh.” Pewter Hughes had always thought 
that Protheroe was a highbrow. He hated him 
more than ever this morning. 

They had passed the last straggling, red- 
shingled bungalow of the last suburb now, a 
crowd of boys in the yard stopping their football 
game to yell at them. The road was hard and 
white and there was heady wine in the November 
air. In the pale sunlight, the woods, gorgeous in 
hues of death, loomed high on each side. Across 
the hazy sky a flock of geese njade south in a 
wavering wedge. A startled rabbit ran across 
the road and disappeared in a flash of white. 

Andy Protheroe tried it again. “Isn’t this 
mean football weather?” 

Pewter Hughes looked at him in heavy and 
obvious disgust and turned his little eyes to a 

134] 


YELLOW 


sulky contemplation of the trees that passed on 
either side like grim, silent runners. 

“Like a little speed, Pewter ? Sure.” 

The ribboned miles flashed by smoothly, patches 
of woods racing with fields of dying brown. The 
motor was rhythmic. 

“Isn’t this great?” 

“Huh.” 

They were entering a village. One-story build¬ 
ings alternated with vacant lots, giving the ap¬ 
pearance of senile, decaying teeth. In front of 
the drug store, men in shirt-sleeves were putting 
up a football score board. 

“Got to hand it to some of these jay towns, 
Pewter. They’re not going to lose out on any¬ 
thing.” 

Pewter Hughes straightened himself from his 
humped position in the seat. His voice was dull 
and even. “Shut your damn mouth!” he said. 
“Turn around.” 

Neither of them said a word during the ride 
back to the campus. Coach Miles was there to 
greet them as the car pulled up at the gymnasium. 
After Protheroe drove away, the other two went 
into the coach’s office. 

The diminutive coach drew up a chair and sat 
facing Pewter. He stared searchingly. 

“Still in the dumps?” 

“Yes.” 

r 135 


TOWN AND GOWN 


There was a long silence. The coach leaned 
forward until his face was only a few inches from 
Pewter’s. ‘Til tell you what’s the matter with 
you, you big slop: you’re yellow . Just as sure as 
God made little green apples. Now aren’t you?” 

Pewter Hughes’ little eyes blinked fast in a 
sudden burst of futile anger. He rose from his 
chair and half crouched, then sank back and 
buried his face in his hands. For a moment he 
rocked his great head back and forth. 

“Damn you,” he said thickly, “don’t you think 
I’m trying? I’ll play. . . . sure I’ll play. I’m not 
afraid of getting hurt. But I can’t seem to get 
to feeling right.” 

Ill 

Pewter Hughes lay on the table—naked. The 

rubber was slapping at his huge slabs of moist, 

_ 

hairy flesh. The team was getting ready. All 
about him was tensity—quick, nervous movements 
—eyes tightly closed—muttered words—rubbing 
of flesh on naked flesh—the hot, steamy smell of 
sweat. 

Coach Miles was saying something to them all. 
It was the “pep talk” he always gave before the 
game: “. . . play ’er for all you’ve got in you. 

. . . We’ve got to win— got to. Any man on this 
team that quits for a second ought to be shot. . . . 
The game—” 

136] 



YELLOW 


Pewter Hughes was just getting off the rubbing 
table. There was a quick explosion inside of him. 
He stood still for a second, his naked legs trem¬ 
bling, his nostrils opening and closing fast. The 
coach had stopped talking. They were watching 
with wide, startled eyes. From Pewter Hughes' 
open lips came a queer, shrill, inarticulate sound. 

His brain went white-hot. He wanted to kill 
somebody. Or was it—? 

“The game—" The coach's last words stung 
him again and again—“the game"— 

That was it: the game. He wanted to kill 
everybody in the game—the coach, the crowd, his 
team, the other team. He wanted to kill the game 
itself. 

If only he could get it between his hands! 

He got into his uniform . . . out on the field 
. . . he did not know how . . . thirty thousand of 
them in the stands facing him as he tore off his 
blanket . . . they were on their feet „ . . yelling. 

“Who?" 

“Hughes!" 

“Who?" 

“Hughes!" 

“Who?" 

“hughes! hughes! hughes!" 

Pewter Hughes turned toward the thirty thou¬ 
sand of them with little eyes that burned in im¬ 
potent rage. 


[137 



♦ 




Sixth Episode: 
DRY AS DUST 


From the University Announcement of 
Courses: “Russian Literature , 

Monday , Wednesday , Friday — 

Prof . Gabler. Open to Juniors 
only; Prerequisite , one g/^ar of 
French and English 7.” 



VI: Dry as Dust 


i 

O LD Gabler lived his life at the State Uni¬ 
versity in the ever-dashed and ever- 
renewed hope that one of the thirty or 
forty juniors who took his course in Russian 
Literature each semester would learn to read. 
One of them had four years ago; but none before 
or since. 

Up in his room, a marvelous room in which 
towering shelves of books rose to the ceiling on 
every side but the one in which the table and bed 
were located, he quietly gloated in anticipation 
of the moment that would bring to him that stu¬ 
dent. Some tall, awkward girl, maybe, whose 
pale eyes would burn at the message of the page 
and who would grope for more. 

Then would old Gabler, very quietly and un¬ 
obtrusively—so quietly and unobtrusively lest he 
rudely quench the flame with too much fuel— 
blow upon that spark. 

Let’s see. There would be first (after the Rus¬ 
sians, of course) Stendahl. Ah, The Red and 

[141. 


TOWN AND GOWN 

The Black! And then, yes, some verse: Baude¬ 
laire, Villon, Blake. Then Gautier and Balzac 
and Flaubert and . . . and these were just a 
start. Just a start. 

That student of four years ago! Old Gabler 
would rub his pudgy hands almost sensually at the 
mere thought of the progress made by Arnot— 
no, not Arnot; it was Zeitland, to be sure. Turge¬ 
nev's Sportsman’s Sketches had first won him 
over, quite by surprise. And then how Zeitland 
had taken to Dostoevsky! Dostoevsky was still 
almost his favorite. Then Checkov. Zeitland 
sent back letters now and had ever since his 
graduation. 

Old Gabler hardly dared admit his hope even 
to himself. But he believed that he had another 
prospect easily as promising as Zeitland had at 
first been; the most definite prospect of three 
semesters in the person of that tall, thin, homely 
Miss—yes, Miss Schultz. The one that always 
came in early and sat each day in the same corner 
seat. It was just the other morning that she had 
stopped at his desk on the way out and talked to 
him about Pushkin. She had asked where she 
could obtain more of Pushkin's things. Think of 
it! Asking for reading outside the classroom, 
extra reading! 

The rest of the students of his class were—er, 
quite likable young people, to be certain—but 
142] 


DRY AS DUST 


utterly hopeless from old Gabler’s point of view. 
Their work in the course consisted in the reading 
each week of one Russian novel, play, book of 
short stories or poems, and the reporting upon it 
to him verbally or in a quiz. Old Gabler knew 
their answers by heart. These answers varied so 
little from year to year: 

Checkov was good but his stories ended in such 
queer places. 

Dostoevsky was good but he was so morbid. 

Turgenev was good but there was so little that 
happened in his novels. 

Andreyev was good but he did write about such 
horrible subjects. 

Tolstoi was good but, really, wasn’t Anna 
Karenina too long for such a small amount of plot 
and action ? 

From the point of view of his students Profes¬ 
sor Gabler must have seemed a queer, pompous, 
didactic sort of old man. His stiff, upstanding 
gray hair; his protruding, beetle eyes of brown; 
his pink, wrinkled forehead; his timid smile and 
the absent way in which he rattled the keys in his 
pocket—he was so patently out of place anywhere 
except in that marvelous room in which the 
towering shelves of books reached to the ceiling 
on every side but one. 

Those who took his course advised other juniors 
that it was soft but dry as dust. “All you got 

[143 


TOWN AND GOWN 


to do is read a book every week but they sure are 
dry books. Anyhow, you can skip lots of it be¬ 
cause he’s pretty easy on you in the quizzes. Old 
Gabler’s not such a bad sort, at that.” 

II 

To old Gabler, as he hurried across the campus 
that morning with an armful of books, the day 
must have seemed epochal. To the thirty-four 
students in his classroom on the third floor of 
University Hall, it was merely one of the morn¬ 
ings upon which the professor might by good 
luck be late enough to allow the class to escape 
him. Three watches were already out, for it was 
a written or unwritten rule at the State Univer¬ 
sity that the class was privileged to leave in a 
body if the instructor were ten or more minutes 
late. 

But at eight and one-half minutes after the 
bell, with seven watches now in sight, old Gabler 
opened the door to be greeted by a salvo of mock 
applause. His beetle eyes opened even wider and 
he smiled his nervous smile. He seemed so de¬ 
fenseless in comparison to such instructors as 
Dean Fannicott that he had been the object each 
year of mock applause, epidemics of forced cough¬ 
ing, shuffling of feet and the like. One could go 
“quite a ways” with him. 

144] 


DRY AS DUST 

His gait never seemed quite sure of its destina¬ 
tion and it was nervously mechanical as he went 
from the door to his desk at the front of the 
room. He placed his shapeless felt hat on a pile 
of books that littered the desk and rummaged 
with quick, birdlike motions in one of the crammed 
drawers. He finally produced a handful of cards 
and began calling the roll. 

“Abbott.” 

“Here.” 

“Miss Blumenthal.” 

“Here.” 

“Miss Emory.” 

“Here.” 

“Grafton.” 

“Here—ah!” 

The last “here” with astounding emphasis. A 
few titters audible, chiefly at the almost childish 
surprise in old Gabler’s protruding eyes, just as 
if the incident were not a daily occurrence. 

“Miss Homan.” 

“Here.” Very languidly. 

And so on down the list. Nonchalantly the 
thirty-four answered their thrice-weekly roll call 
without once suspecting what an anxious day it 
was for old Gabler. The youths in narrow col¬ 
lars and tiny neckties, the youths with hair 
brushed straight back from the neatest of parts, 
the girls in unbuckled galoshes and fur choker 

[145 


TOWN AND GOWN 


collars—the thirty-four of them seated in front 
of old Gabler in the rows of scratched, iron-armed 
chairs. 

The recitation began. A youth with bored, 
sarcastic eyes took a final gulping look at his notes, 
shoved the text book to one side somewhat osten¬ 
tatiously and reported his reading of a volume of 
Checkov’s short stories. There was no doubt 
but that he had read them. He made that point 
obvious by carefully outlining the plots in ad¬ 
vance. 

They were, he would say as his criticism of 
them, very good. Yes, very well done. Checkov 
was often called one of the greatest masters of 
the technique of the short story. But it seemed 
to him that at least one or two of them might have 
been a little bit better if there had been—well, 
more to them. That is, one or two of them, any¬ 
way, that he had particularly in mind in reference 
to this point. Now in that story, Grisha, as an ex¬ 
ample, the end came so suddenly and unexpectedly 
as to leave kind of a vague impression in the 
reader’s mind. The names in all these stories 
were a little queer, of course, being Russian, and 
that made it a little difficult to follow them. But 
the stories were, as a whole, he would say, ex¬ 
tremely good. 

The class appeared to be fully as bored as the 
speaker. Some of them were following with their 
146] 


DRY AS DUST 


pens the grooves in the iron arms of the desks. 
Two or three others who were to report that day 
were reading their notes as if they were attempt¬ 
ing to learn them. Old Gabler’s round, bright 
eyes studied the brown-tinted picture of the Par¬ 
thenon which stood out on the otherwise bare and 
calcimined walls of the room. 

Once he darted a quick, apologetic glance at the 
corner of the room where Irene Schultz sat. He 
turned his eyes away immediately and looked 
about as if in scrutiny at several of the other stu¬ 
dents. Irene Schultz’s pale features, thin neck 
and light blue eyes were bent toward the papers 
on the arm of her desk. She was leaning slightly 
upon one elbow, her shoulders a bit stooped. 

“And—er—now—” Old Gabler’s voice was a 
bass drone that belied his quick eyes. “—Miss 
McFarland on—” He stopped to refer to the 
page on his desk. “—on Gorky’s Creatures That 
Once Were Men.” 

Miss McFarland’s over-rouged cheeks “fought” 
slightly with her silk blouse of light green. She 
rose with a languidness hardly concealed and di¬ 
rected her voice at old Gabler rather than at the 
class. The students about her went back to their 
reading of notes and following grooves in the 
arms of their desks soon after she had begun 
reciting. 

Maxim Gorky was the author of the book she 

[147 


TOWN AND GOWN 


had read. He was one of the younger authors 
of Russia. He had come from a very poor family 
and had had a very hard time to make a living 
when he was a boy. He knew the poor classes of 
Russia so well. That was why he wrote of them 
in this book and in other books he wrote. The 
book described a kind of a poor hotel in Russia 
and showed the evils of liquor among the poor 
classes in Russia. The book showed that the liv¬ 
ing conditions among the poor classes of Russia 
were very hard. The book was somewhat compli¬ 
cated in some places but it gave one a very good 
picture of how the poor people lived there. 

Miss McFarland sat down abruptly and 
watched anxiously as old Gabler made mysterious 
marks on one of the cards on his desk. 

Irene Schultz was next. She was getting her 
notes together even before Miss McFarland had 
quit reciting. She was unbelievably tall as she 
stood up at the calling of her name. Her left 
hand kept opening and closing upon the arm of the 
desk beside her as she began her recitation. 

Old Gabler was sitting straight in his swivel 
chair. His eyes were upon his desk. He had 
taken up his pencil and was drawing little tri¬ 
angles upon his class record. Inside these tri¬ 
angles he drew inverted triangles of a like size 
until a row of six-pointed stars had been formed 
across the top of the page. In another moment he 
148] 


DRY AS DUST 

had the stars colored black. It was only the mat¬ 
ter of a few more moments until the stars were 
transformed into circles. 

. . but the plot of the novel is very simple.” 
Her slightly jerky voice seemed to be flowing to¬ 
ward him like a thin trickle of water. “It shows 
the effects of Nihilism on a young Russian scien¬ 
tist, and there is also a love element in the story 
that ...” 

There was no longer any room at the top of the 
page for circles. Old Gabler began at the bottom 
of the page, drawing squares this time. These 
squares were quickly transformed into eight- 
pointed stars by the transposition on them of 
other squares of the same size. Then he sur¬ 
rounded each square with a large triangle. 

Irene Schultz's words came quicker now and 
with an intonation as if she were about to reach 
the end of her recitation. 

“I think that it is a very good novel. Turgenev 
has shown very subtly the effects upon two young 
university students of ingratitude toward their 
parents. That, I believe, is the lesson that Turge¬ 
nev has tried to teach us in the novel. He has 
brought out that which he wanted to show very 
clearly by contrasting the one student, who is ex¬ 
tremely neglectful of his parents, with the other 
student who afterward learned to understand 
more of what his parents meant to him ...” 

[149 


TOWN AND GOWN 


Was it because she was so unusual in appear¬ 
ance? Old Gabler wondered. Or was it her talk 
with him at the desk one time that had led him 
to hope she would be another Zeitland? 

Just as Irene Schultz closed her recitation and 
sat down, the bell rang for the end of the class 
period. The students rose precipitately and made 
their way out. Old Gabler nodded to Irene 
Schultz as she passed. She stopped. 

“Do you like Turgenev, Miss Schultz ?” 

“Oh,—yes, sir. I enjoyed this book a great 
deal.” 

Old Gabler’s eyes were more round and bright 
than usual. His smile was anxious and defense¬ 
less. 

“Fve wanted to tell you so many times, Pro¬ 
fessor Gabler, how much I enjoy this course.” 
She was awkwardly, almost pathetically poised 
in front of his desk. “I like reading very much 
and the Russian writers are so unusual, don’t you 
think? At first I couldn’t understand them. They 
seemed so queer and their stories didn’t even 
seem to have a plot to them. But I think it was 
I who was at fault, Professor Gabler, for not 
really grasping the lessons they were trying to 
teach. I do believe that I did get the lesson 
Turgenev was trying to teach in Fathers and 
Sons” 

150] 


DRY AS DUST 

“Russian literature/’ said old Gabler slowly, 
dully, “is very interesting.” 

Miss Schultz smiled almost gratefully, nodded, 
and closed the door softly behind her as she left 
the room. 

Ill 

Footsteps in the hall outside sounded loud for 
the next few moments as old Gabler, still seated 
at his desk, traced more designs on his class re¬ 
cord. Finally he arose, picked up his books from 
the desk one at a time, and, as an afterthought, 
placed his fountain pen in his vest pocket. He 
went back to his room to read for the rest of the 
day. 

He took dinner that evening at the University 
Club and listened silently to two young Engineer¬ 
ing instructors who were discussing the relative 
abilities of the quarterback and the end on the 
Ohio State team. After dinner he returned again 
to that marvelous room where there were tower¬ 
ing shelves of books on every side except the one 
in which the table and bed were located. He filled 
his calabash pipe and took down an old, leather- 
bound book that had once been in the library of 
some French priest who lived in an ancient town 
on the banks of the Loire. 

At eleven o’clock he closed the book and placed 
it in its old position on the shelf. He wound the 

[151 


TOWN AND GOWN 


alarm clock and, sitting on the edge of the bed, 
began to unlace his shoes. The light from the 
electric reading lamp cut a keen segment out of 
the dim room and he stopped for a moment to 
watch the smoke from his calabash pipe drift 
slowly toward the gleam. 

“Dry as dust?” he muttered half aloud. 

He had known for several semesters that stu¬ 
dents had applied this description to his course. 
But suppose—suppose that he should rise from 
his chair and face the class some day. He had al¬ 
ways thought that he would some day do that. 
He would be very quiet and sure. And his voice 
would be low. 

“Dry as dust? And I live with Bazarov and 
Mademoiselle de Maupin and Ernest Pontifex 
and Julien Sorel and Raskolnikov. I am they. 
Dry as dust? 

“And you? You will go through life in a long, 
dusty procession. Yes, each one of you humped 
low over the wheel of a little, high automobile, 
driving always to the next place. You will stop 
only to buy the cherry-colored refreshment that 
is advertised on the billboards and to buy the 
magazines with pink and cream covers. Dry as 
dust ?” 

But old Gabler knew that he would never say 
it. He had thought of it often enough before. 
... It must have been those pale, eager eyes 

152] 



DRY AS DUST 


that had caused him to place all that hope in her. 
But, there had been Zeitland. 

He pulled down the shades, drew back the 
coverlet and went to bed. He was very tired. 



I 


Seventh Episode: 
THE FIRST MAN 


From the Catalogue of the University: 
“The semester records of an under¬ 
graduate are sent by the Registrar 
to the students father or guardian” 


? 


V 







VII: The First Man 


i 

T HEY were in the cemetery on the evening 
of their dance date, seated on the twin 
tombstones of Ewald N. and Martha 
Lowe. The granite-carved names and the sculp¬ 
tured angels on the sides of the stones were oc¬ 
casionally revealed by a glow worm of a moon. 
Here and there an echoing laugh made known 
that other couples, too, had sought the cemetery 
after the dance. 

The town seemed miles instead of blocks away. 
The occasional rattle of a street car was startling. 
Once a strolling couple leaving the place, made 
the girl start in delicious fear and move closer to 
her partner as the footsteps crunched the gravel 
in the walk to the rear. 

Cemetery conversations of after-dance couples 
were generally linked by long silences. Then 
short whispered speeches. Wonder who Ewald 
N. and Martha Lowe were? And what did they 
think of people sitting right here over them and 

[157 


TOWN AND GOWN 


talking about them after they were dead and 
gone? Ooh, such cold stone! Comfy? 

That was the moment when their acquaintance 
really started, the moment when he—abruptly— 
tried to kiss her. They had had dates, of course, 
the year before when both of them were juniors, 
and they had maintained a speaking acquaintance 
since being in the same five-hour French class as 
freshmen. But—he tried to kiss her. 

“No.” 

Her smile was gone. She had slipped out from 
under the arm that had been about her—gradu¬ 
ally—since ten minutes before. She confronted 
him in the dimness. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“But—” 

“Think this is a petting party?” 

“Well . . . you came out here.” 

“Well, I thought you were past the high school 
stuff.” 

“All right.” He was sullen. 

There was a long silence, the longest of their 
evening together. 

“Yes, I was a damn fool.” His contrition, 
when it came, was awkward and boyish in its 
suddenness. 

Their forgiveness was dramatic and led them 
158 ] 



THE FIRST MAN 


rapidly back to whispers and confidences. Before 
they left the cemetery that night they decided ex¬ 
citedly that they would be, well, kind of friends 
and partners, you know. No petting. All that 
was high school stuff, anyhow. Yes, just friends 
and partners. 

“I don't believe I'm conceited, or anything like 
that, but we are kind of different from most of 
them." His words, as they arose from the tomb¬ 
stones, were the verbal charter of their partner¬ 
ship. “We both of us like to notice people and 
things and we read a lot and talk things over to¬ 
gether. I never knew any other girl in the Uni¬ 
versity you could talk things over with like you 

V 

can with you. Just sort of man-to-man. All 
most of them think about is their dates and dances 
and such stuff. 

“And ... I don't know; you think a lot more 
of each other when you're just partners like this. 
It's a lot better when you can be frank and open 
and talk things over. But you can't do that with 
most of them." 

“It's just like that with most men, too. If they 
do know anything and can talk, then they don't 
dance well or don't show you a good time. Don't 
you hate a person without a sense of humor?" 

Within the next two weeks the two acquired a 
new social status in the University. When the 
same pair is seen evening after evening by their 

[i59 


TOWN AND GOWN 


acquaintances it is not long until the world, in¬ 
cluding the faculty, gently draws to one side and 
pauses to watch with quizzical wonder and envy. 
All other men, the three or four different men a 
week with whom she used to be seen at the Orph 
or at dances, appeared tacitly to have united in an 
agreement not to refer to her name any more in 
the telephone directory. He had left off as sud¬ 
denly with other girls. 

It was not that Ross Boyle and Bee Melton, 
seniors though they were, had any particular im¬ 
portance in the State University. Neither Pewter 
Hughes nor Dot Ambrose nor Andy Protheroe 
nor Caris Dudley would have known either of the 
two by sight. They were both of that great ma¬ 
jority of the State University which belongs to 
no organizations or to minor ones, which distin¬ 
guishes itself in no one thing and which never 
appears in the “annual” except as a unit of one of 
its own huge groups. Of the six thousand stu¬ 
dents of the State University Ross Boyle and 
Bee Melton each knew at the most a few hundred. 

She could be seen any morning on her way to 
a nine o’clock class, coming down the steps of the 
rooming house with a noisy group of the twenty- 
odd girls who stayed there. Bobbed hair that 
stood out pertly to frame each side of her pretty, 
curious face; eyes that were gray and question¬ 
ing; quick petite hands—she justified in her ap- 
160] 


THE FIRST MAN 

pearance the three or four dates she had “rated” 
each week. 

He was slender with the suave slimness of a 
senior who knows that he can wear well a rough, 
masculine, sheepskin-lined coat along with the 
tiniest of neckties. He stayed at the student 
Y. M. C. A., would graduate in June from the 
College of Commerce and hoped some day to live 
in a bungalow with a wife and children and to be 
a strong member of the Rotary and Kiwanis 
Clubs. 

II 

As partners during the first few weeks they 
spent most of their evenings at the You’ll Come 
Inn, seated across from each other over chocolate 
malted milk and talking in glowing abstractions. 
The couples in the booths about them were pet¬ 
ting, they knew, whenever the watchful manager, 
watchful in the fear of an edict from the execu¬ 
tive dean that would ruin his business, was in 
another part of the place. But Ross Boyle and 
Bee Melton were steadfast in their discussions. 

They decided, after nearly two hours of con¬ 
versation, that there was a God, in spite of the 
arguments of these philosophy sharks and other 
highbrows to the contrary; else how could there 
be anything so wonderful as the sunset or the 
sprouting of seeds ? They were sure that money 

[ t 6i 


TOWN AND GOWN 

troubles were the chief cause of discontent in 
marriage and that a majority of students in the 
State University were merely wasting their time. 
They concluded that of all qualities of character, 
will power was by far the most valuable. They 
eagerly compared their tastes for olives, egg plant 
and spinach. They noticed all the people about 
them and tried to decide what all of them would 
be doing in life ten years hence. 

Before they realized it themselves it was an 
accepted fact in their small groups that Ross 
Boyle was rushing Bee Melton—rushing her 
heavy. They were now seen strolling about the 
residence streets on Sunday afternoons, hatless 
even though the March wind was still wintry— 
certain indication to the world of intensive 
rushing. 

Before long their discussions began to wane. 
They went to dances now. It seemed to them that 
they had discussed every subject under the sun. 

Both of them tacitly agreed upon that fact one 
evening when Bee Melton obtained first rights to 
the kitchen of the house where she roomed for 
a candy pull. The taffy turned out badly and 
every subject of conversation they brought up 
during the evening appeared to be well worn, to 
be lacking in the something that had once bright¬ 
ened their discussions. And at the dance the next 
evening they danced closely and silently with -elab- 
162] 


THE FIRST MAN 


orate attention to their step. Between dances 
they talked of the technique of the side step in 
the “jelly bean/’ 

“That’s the wonderful part about our being to¬ 
gether,” he whispered as they shook hands at 
parting that evening. “We can get out and have 
such a wonderful time dancing and things like 
that and then such a wonderful time just talking 
things over, too. You generally find that people 
who like to read and think and notice things are 
regular sticks at a dance.” 

There was a certain shyness and restraint in 
their attitude toward each other that had never 
been present before. They sometimes had long 
periods of a silence that was uneasy and watchful. 
Even their simplest remarks lacked the old ease 
and brightness. 

Their first kiss came without warning to either 
of them. They were seated on the rail of the 
porch one night after the dance. Someone went 
past and they looked into each other’s eyes, their 
faces close together, and listened until the foot¬ 
steps were almost lost in the next block. 

“Bee?” 

His tone was challenging and the smile drew 
his lips into hard, strained lines. She looked at 
him with auxious eyes. 

“Bee!” 

His voice came unsteadily and his face showed 

[163 


TOWN AND GOWN 


white in the dimness of light from the distant 
street lamp. He held her nearly hidden in his 
sheepskin-lined coat and kissed her twice before 
he released her. Breathing quickly, uncertainly, 
they faced each other almost in the manner of 
antagonists. 

“It’s all right, isn’t it?” he asked. 

She said nothing but did not resist when he 
kissed her again. It all seemed so easy. 

They went to the cemetery the next evening 
and kissed many times as they sat silent on the 
tombstones of Ewald N. and Martha Lowe. 

“I can’t see anything wrong about petting, can 
you?” he asked in a whisper, as they were leaving. 
“After all I think it’s the kind of a spirit you have 
that really counts in anything. It makes a lot of 
difference who it is, too. Petting might be wrong 
the way some of them look at it, but we have the 
right kind of a spirit about it. Don’t we now?” 

Ill 

The weeks passed. They were together nearly 
every evening; in the cemetery, on the porch or 
strolling about the dim residence streets. Their 
conversation was brief and whispered. They 
kissed long and often. 

There was, apparently, no reason for their 
first quarrel. She suddenly tore herself from his 
164] 


THE FIRST MAN 


arms in a burst of tears one night and went into 
the house without a word. He did not attend 
classes the next day until he had arranged a meet¬ 
ing with her at the English seminar and had 
“made up” after a series of notes. 

Neither of them would have been able to ex¬ 
plain what caused them to throw aside all 
restraint for the first time one night in the ceme¬ 
tery. Love of that sort had seemed far away and 
mysterious and connected with whispered scan¬ 
dals about the University or with summary dis¬ 
missals by the executive dean. Long ago when 
they “discussed things” the subject had held an 
ashamed fascination for them. 

A moon that groped from under clouds showed 
the dried wreaths of flowers beneath the angels 
in bas relief on either side of the tombstone as 
fresh, dewy flowers and it gave the sudden faces 
of a strolling couple leaving the cemetery an un¬ 
earthly loveliness before it blotted them out of 
sight. It stole from Ross Boyle and Bee Melton 
all of their old sanity and made them for the 
moment the selves they did not dare to be. 

It was all vague to Ross Boyle until afterward. 
He was dazed by the completeness and suddenness 
of her surrender. He had thought that she would 
refuse. But she had suddenly dropped all the 
watchfulness and careful guard of weeks. She 

[165 


TOWN AND GOWN 

seemed—strangely—to be stronger in surrender 
than she had been before in defense. 

What, he wondered, had confused his sense of 
right and wrong? Was it because she had ap¬ 
peared so natural and innocent of any evil? 
What, he wondered, had made him lose his hold 
on himself and hurl himself into that hour of 
godhood and ecstasy and power—and wrong? 

He could hardly believe that it was she sitting 
beside him. Her dark hair stood out so courage¬ 
ously and her eyes trusted herself and him. His 
face, deep in the sheepskin collar, flared in the 
glow of his cigarette. For a long time they were 
silent. There was a strange trust and tenderness 
in the grasp of her hand on his arm., 

“Are you sorry, Bee?” 

“No, are you?” 

“No,” he lied. 

He knew that he was sorry. He felt alone and 
envied her that fearlessness and exaltation. Wo¬ 
men were mad, he told himself bitterly. You'd 
think they'd be most afraid, most sorry; but they 
weren't. She seemed untroubled. 

All of his convictions gnawed at him and made 
him miserable. It had been different the times 
when he had been intimate with the town girls 
on rummy dates. Someone else had been the first 
man with them. And he had always had a dream 


THE FIRST MAN 

of a girl he was to marry, one who would be above 
sordidness. 

“And then—” He could not help bringing it 
up again. “I wouldn’t have unless you’d have 
wanted to, too. You don’t blame me, Bee?” 

“Why?” 

He did not know what to answer, now that 
apologies or contrition did not seem needed. He 
fumbled for a cigarette to gain time and noticed 
that he had a lighted one between his fingers. 

“I don’t think that anything could be wrong— 
with us,” he said, and almost believed it as he saw 
the response in her eyes. “It’s the kind of a spirit 
you have that counts. Anyway, we love each 
other so much that we’re just the same as 
married.” 

He kissed her many times. He tried in his 
kisses to bring back that ecstasy and power that 
he had felt before, but all the time his conscience 
was dinning relentlessly at him. 

She had been pure and he had wronged her. 
He had been the first man. The trouble was that 
everything had seemed so right, just in the way 
she looked and acted. He longed to talk to her 
about it. She was in his arms now, her face 
buried against his shoulder. 

No, there was only one honorable course open 
to him. He had wronged her and he must marry 
her. That would right everything. 


[167 



TOWN AND GOWN 


“Funny, isn’t it?” She was speaking and her 
eyes burned strangely into his as she drew her 
head back from his shoulder. “Think of all these 
people here—dead. And we’ll both be that way 
some day, too. And we love each other. We seem 
like the only people in the world tonight.” 

He kissed her again and wondered at such 
strange, topsy-turvy thoughts. His watch, as he 
stopped to look at it in the glow of the cigarette, 
showed that it was nearly three. 

It was misting a little as they arose silently from 
the tombstone. The moon was buried behind a 
bank of clouds. Their footsteps on the gravel 
walk sounded ominously loud to him and he was 
irritated by her lilting walk. 

“Just about three months ago that we were here 
for the first time. Remember?” 

“Such a solemn boy!” she chaffed. 

It irritated him, too, when she turned about, 
just under the arched gateway, and, with a gay, 
shrill laugh that shattered into startled echoes 
against the tombstones: “Good-by, ghosts!” 

It had begun to rain as they reached the cement 
sidewalk. They hurried on silently. Once they 
stopped under the shelter of a tree in a long kiss 
and embrace, then went on arm-in-arm down the 
dimly lit street. 


168] 


Eighth Episode: 

UNITY, COHERENCE AND 
EMPHASIS 


From the Bulletin of the University: 
“Courses of especial interest to 
teachers are offered during the 
Summer Session.” 


% 



VIII: Unity, Coherence and 
Emphasis 

i 

N OW, Doctor,” he would say in his 
crisply cheerful way—he always called 
Dean Fannicott “Doctor”. He would 
rise alertly, his head held a bit on one side and his 
broad mustache twinkling as he spoke. “Doctor, 
all my preparation on this subject has led me to 
believe—” 

At the desk Dean Fannicott would listen coldly. 
In another moment everybody would have lapsed 
back into drowsiness, for “Professor” Hurlihy’s 
recitations were interminably long. When he con¬ 
cluded he would seat himself, his short legs wide¬ 
spread, his eyes on Dean Fannicott trustingly and 
his pudgy arm, with its stiff cuffs, lodge emblem 
cuff links and hair covering the wrists nearly to 
the fingers, over the back of the seat in front of 
the sophomore girl making up the last year’s 
flunk. 

His appearance stamped him as being of a dif¬ 
ferent world than either the women teachers in 
neat shirtwaists and serge skirts or the few under- 

[171 


TOWN AND GOWN 


graduates of the summer school class. His little 
blue eyes under the uneven brows were kindly 
and important. His mustache was serious and 
responsible and he brushed his thin hair with 
water so that it nearly covered his bald spot. His 
shoes were a well-shined black with the squarest 
of toes; he wore a large gold watch chain across 
the front of his blue serge vest and his neckties 
were wide, sober neckties, firmly fixed with a fire 
opal stick pin. 

During the July days he was always the most 
alert in Dean Fannicott’s class. When through 
the open windows the campus was hazy with 
cornbelt heat, when the catalpas drooped and 
when the stone bench presented by the class of 
1905 shone hot and forbidding in unshaded grass, 
Daniel L. Hurlihy sat erect in his seat, his short 
forearm moving in the taking of notes with the 
prescribed muscular movement taught in grade 
school. 

'‘Excellent course, the doctor’s,” he would say 
to his wife evenings up in their hot, stuffy little 
room. She, a tired, thin woman in limp lawn 
dresses who seemed always to be brushing strands 
of hair up from her damp forehead, would listen 
to him admiringly. He would invariably finish 
with a repetition in a tone that was genially final 
and emphatic: “Yes, sir, an excellent course, ex¬ 
cellent.” 

172] 


UNITY, COHERENCE, EMPHASIS 

It was more than twenty years before that 
Daniel L. Hurlihy and his wife (both teaching 
then, he at six hundred and she at four hundred 
dollars a year) had planned to attend the summer 
session of the State University. But Junior had 
arrived and two years later, Clarice May. The 
family income was decreased as the children took 
Mrs. Hurlihy permanently from her teaching. 
Seven or eight years later, when the house was 
almost paid for, and when the summer session 
did not seem far distant, Clarice May fell sick. 
The expenses for her operation postponed the 
summer session several more years. 

But when “Professor” Hurlihy’s salary had 
reached the figure of twelve hundred dollars, 
when he was principal of schools in charge of 
eleven women teachers, and teaching only civics 
and rhetoric, himself, when he was grand master 
of the lodge, they decided that the time had come. 

He had especially looked forward to meeting 
Fannicott, the author of that invaluable book, 
Principles of Rhetoric. 

Fannicott’s Principles of Rhetoric! 

What Harden high school student had not 
thumbed that green volume and mouthed its 
salient principles: “Un’ty, coherunce an’ empha- 
sus”? By proxy, Fannicott was almost a citizen 
of Harden. “Professor” Hurlihy had procured 
him his citizenship by his vigorous efforts to in- 

[173 


TOWN AND GOWN 


culcate in the youth of Harden the teachings of 
Principles of Rhetoric. 

“Turn to page sixty-seven,” he would say in 
the classroom without so much as a glance at the 
green text book. “You will notice there that Doc¬ 
tor Fannicott says: ‘A change of tense within a 
sentence is desirable and necessary in certain in¬ 
stances'. Now turn to page seventy-one for ex¬ 
amples.” 

When young ignoramuses failed to grasp what 
Hurlihy called the “great outstanding fundamen¬ 
tals”—unity, coherence and emphasis—their fail¬ 
ure seemed almost an open affront to Fannicott. 
To them, the “professor” quoted sternly from 
the preface: “The value of constant application 
cannot be too much emphasized”. 

He even read the book at home in the evening. 
Then the little green volume seemed to have 
dropped the classroom air of discipline and to 
have assumed a mellow, friendly, personal quality. 
Some of the “wrong” examples (“to be re¬ 
written”) appeared to contain a deep and delicious 
sparkle of wit. Some of the definitions had in 
them almost the warmth of a handshake, as from 
Fannicott to Hurlihy—“The province of rhetoric 
is bounded only by human thought.” 

More than once the idea had occurred to Daniel 
L. Hurlihy that he might sometime grasp Fanni- 
cott’s hand and say, “In all my experience as an 

174] 


UNITY, COHERENCE, EMPHASIS 

instructor I have never noted a single discrepancy 
in Principles of Rhetoric” 

Now that he was in summer school and even 
in Fannicott's class, the idea had grown to be an 
ambition. But it had not been easy to talk to 
Fannicott; after class the assistant dean either 
hurried out or was caught in a net of questions 
from undergraduates. Hurlihy had never found 
him in his office. Of course he had met Fannicott 
on the campus but the dean was hurrying along 
with absorbed eyes straight ahead—he passed 
without recognizing the “professor” and Hurlihy 
felt it would be a bit undignified to call after him 
or overtake him. It was hardly the way for one 
educator to approach another. 

The summer session was nearly over. Hurlihy 
was determined not to return to Harden without 
bearing his tribute to Fannicott. . . . When he 
attended teachers' institute in the fall, he would 
say casually to County Superintendent Bute: “As 
Doctor Fannicott said to me, recently—” or “as 
I told Doctor Fannicott—” 

II 

“Well, I think I'll drop in and see Doctor Fanni¬ 
cott tonight,” he said carelessly to his wife one 
evening at supper, as carelessly as if a visit with 
Fannicott might be suggested on the spur of the 

[175 


TOWN AND GOWN 


moment. He continued cheerfully, “Few things 
in Principles of Rhetoric I’d like to discuss with 
him.” 

Mrs. Hurlihy was silent for a moment in the 
face of her mate’s blithe intrepidity. “Oh, yes,” 
she finally said. 

“That chapter on coherence for example.” 

The calmness of his demeanor impressed her. 
“I hope you see his wife,” she said. “I’d like to 
know what kind of a little woman she is.” 

After their supper at the delicatessen cafe¬ 
teria, Daniel L. Hurlihy set forth, sturdy in his 
blue serge and lodge emblems to make entrance 
into the unexplored regions of the faculty dis¬ 
trict. Mrs. Hurlihy looked after him proudly 
and returned to the rooming-house to prepare 
her drawings for art and design class. 

The “professor” found the number he was seek¬ 
ing on a severe stucco house with the date of its 
erection in Roman numerals above the dark 
paneled door. ... At the side of the house, a 
barefoot boy eyed him suspiciously and sullenly 
as he directed the stream of water from a garden 
hose to an unusually large great toe. 

“Doctor Fannicott’s boy!” Daniel L. Hurlihy’s 
discovery seemed portentous. He scraped his 
feet on the steps, considering the brass knocker, 
uneasily. He was relieved to find a bell and rang 
it with firm precision. 

176] 


UNITY, COHERENCE, EMPHASIS 

The door opened somewhat abruptly. Dean 
Fannicott, a bit rumpled of hair, his eyes tired 
behind the shell-rimmed glasses and blinking at 
the dusk, faced him. The dean’s brusque features 
were not yet enlightened by recognition. There 
was an expression around his lips as if he were 
about to say, “Well—?” 

“Good-evening, Doctor.” Daniel L. Hurlihy’s 
tone was hearty and his mustache broke bushily 
into a smile. “I was just going by your way and 
thought I’d drop in for a second. I can’t stay 
long—I promised Mrs. Hurlihy I’d be back soon. 
Terribly hot this evening isn’t it?” 

Until the mention of the name there had been 
an expectant look in Dean Fannicott’s eyes as if 
he were awaiting the return of a theme. He 
nodded, smiled equivocally, and opened the screen 
door in invitation. . . . 

“Yes, annoyingly warm,” the assistant dean of 
the department of English finally said; and in his 
polite classroom manner, “Please have a chair, 
Mr. Hurlihy.” 

Daniel L. Hurlihy seated himself, his short 
legs outspread and his hat carefully placed beside 
him on the velour divan. He looked about at the 
dull rugs, the tapestries on the walls and the 
vague, low-hung pictures. “Very cool house you 
have here, Doctor,” said he. 


[177 


TOWN AND GOWN 


“Even in this corn-belt heat/’ said the Dean, 
“we find it rather comfortable.” 

Daniel L. Hurlihy crossed his legs. His hands 
were clasped moistly about his knee. With elabo¬ 
rate attention, he drew a handkerchief from his 
pocket, unfolded it, and wiped his forehead. “I 
see by the Journal,” he said, “that there is the 
largest attendance registered at this summer ses¬ 
sion ever known in the history of the university. 
Let me see—oh yes! I believe the article said 
there were three thousand and some here? Or, 
no—maybe that wasn’t the figure. Anyhow, I 
suppose that makes your work pretty heavy, 
doesn’t it, Doctor?” 

Dean Fannicott acknowledged the question 
with an attentive nod. 

“Well, it’s a mighty fine thing, this summer 
work. My wife and I have found it excellent. 
Our high school work, of course, prevents us from 
attending the regular session. Now there is 
nothing we would like better than to be able to 
come down here for several years, even at our 
age—” Daniel L. Hurlihy chuckled “—and we’re 
neither of us youngsters! But since that is out 
of the question we find the summer school an ex¬ 
cellent substitute. I have about four hundred in 
my school at Harden that keep me right busy, 
I can tell you—but you know how that is.” 
i 7 8] 



UNITY, COHERENCE, EMPHASIS 

The dean’s answer was politely modulated in 
tone and accompanied by his careful smile. 

Dusk was creeping indecisively into darkness. 
Fannicott arose and turned a switch that flooded 
the room with soft light. There was an impres¬ 
sive silence. 

From without the open windows the summer 
night echoed with monotonous sounds—the bang¬ 
ing of screen doors, the buzzing of June bugs, the 
ceaseless swish of the garden hose, a child singing, 
"Needle’s eye that doth supply” over and over 
with dreary insistence. 

Daniel L. Hurlihy put his head on one side and 
smiled broadly to indicate that he was about to 
make a jest. "That child,” he said, jerking his 
head toward the windows, "has grasped your 
principle of 'emphasis through repetition’, Doc¬ 
tor.” 

"Miss Griffith’s niece,” observed the dean with 
distaste. 

Daniel L. Hurlihy felt that he had cleverly in¬ 
troduced the important topic. He grasped it now, 
tenaciously. His voice had even more of its usual 
loud cheerfulness. "Well, Doctor, I’ve wanted to 
tell you for a long time how much I appreciate 
your book. An excellent work; the most out¬ 
standing I have ever used in all my experience 
as an instructor.” 

"Ah,” Dean Fannicott regarded his visitor with 

[179 


TOWN AND GOWN 

tepid interest. “May I ask, Mr. Hurlihy, which 
book?” 

“Principles of Rhetoric. An excellent work, 
Doctor. I have never found a discrepancy in a 
single explanation. The chapters on unity, co¬ 
herence and emphasis are particularly valuable— 
yes sir, particularly valuable.” 

Through the spectacled mask of Dean Fanni- 
cott’s faculty poise wavered a look of doubt. 
“Thank you,” he said, dryly, “Principles of 
Rhetoric, I am given to understand by my pub¬ 
lishers, enjoyed at one time a fairly extensive use 
by high schools. That was, of course,—as you no 
doubt know—before it became obsolete and super¬ 
seded by the newer methods. Naturally.” As he 
dealt these death-blows to his brain-child his voice 
became almost genial. 

“Oh, yes,” said Daniel L. Hurlihy, dully. “I 
knew.” . . . The air seemed thick as butter. He 
wiped away the sweat that streamed from his effi¬ 
cient pores. 

He arose and lamely cocked his head on one 
side. “Well, Doctor, Tve already ‘stayed my¬ 
self out’ as they say down in Harden County. 
I’m afraid I must be going.” ... At the door he 
awkwardly extended his hand. “Good night, 
Doctor.” 

“Good night, Mr. Hurlihy.” 

“Professor” Hurlihy smiled, nodded and went 
180] 


UNITY, COHERENCE, EMPHASIS 

down the steps . . . slowly trudged back through 
the hot dusk. 


Ill 

In their little room, the curtains hung still and 
limp at the open windows. The rockers looked 
sticky as if they had been varnished with glue. 

Mrs. Daniel L. Hurlihy, in a discouraged voile 
dress, sat at the study table, making a sketch of 
“still life” for her Art and Design class. She 
was drawing a banana and two oranges—the 
models were in a glass dish on the bureau. She 
put down her pencil as her husband entered. 

“Well, it's a hot night,” he said as greeting. 
“It’ll be a hard night to sleep.” He sat down 
heavily on the bed and fanned himself with his 
hat. 

“Was he home?” she asked, irrelevantly. 

“Who? Oh—Doctor Fannicott. . . . Well, we 
had a great little visit. A great little visit. . . . 
I saw his boy. Not a large lad. Not as large as 
Junior—” 

“What is Mrs. Fannicott like?” 

“Didn’t you know she was dead?” He seemed 
irritated with her lack of information. “I thought 
I told you before when you asked me, that she 
was dead.” 

“How did he act?” 

[181 


TOWN AND GOWN 


“Act? He acted like anybody would act. A 
very congenial man. Very congenial.” 

“I know he was glad you called, Daniel. He 
must be nice. You know from reading his Prin¬ 
ciples of Rhetoric I imagine he’s a great deal like 
County Superintendent Bute.” She turned back 
to the table and erased the orange she had drawn. 

“Principles of Rhetoric” said Daniel L. Hur- 
lihy, and his voice was limp as if the heat had 
destroyed its old, crisp cheerfulness, “—we-11, I 
don’t wish to decry the doctor, but it may be the 
book is a little bit obsolete.. A lit-tle bit ob-so- 
lete.” 


Ninth Episode: 

BASS DRUMS 


From the Annual Catalogue of the Uni¬ 
versity: “Women students are 

under the immediate supervision of 
the Dean of Women ” 


IX: Bass Drums 


i 

O N one side Dean Agnes Watson. On the 
other side several thousand young vir¬ 
gins with knee-conscious skirts and 
rouged ear tips and rolled-down stockings and 
bobbed hair and plucked eyebrows and baby stares 
and affected lisps and a terrible frankness. And 
several thousand men students who roared about 
in high-power, low-slung automobiles apparently 
in an endless pursuit of the several thousand 
young virgins. 

The odds were all against the dean of women, 
at least in the way of numbers. But the power 
and the regulations of the State University were 
behind her and she was determined to— 

“Stop it! Stop it!” 

The words almost shrieked themselves through 
her mind as she waited, waited in her brightly 
lit little apartment for ten o’clock to come. The 
round of Saturday night fraternity and sorority 
dances wasn’t well started until ten o’clock. 

The dean of women was going out to see for 

[185 


TOWN AND GOWN 


herself this time. Things had come to a climax. 
Even the Sunday sections of the Chicago news¬ 
papers were asking the world in bold-face type if 
the modern co-ed were really bad or only frivo¬ 
lous. 

“There must be an end to it.” 

The Dean of Women of the State University 
compressed her lips as she remembered former 
tours of inspection. How these overdone virgins 
and sleek youths had greeted Executive Dean 
Abrams and herself with too obvious cordiality 
and had “entertained” them effusively. How the 
dancing that had gone on while they were there 
had been conducted with strained decorum; youth 
and girl at least a foot apart, galloping awkardly 
through the unfamiliar measures of a waltz. All 
a farce and the dean of women knew it. The jazz 
had begun ten minutes after they were gone. 

The young savages condescended not at all to 
ordinary chaperons. They merely relegated them 
to the obscurity of armchairs and sent suffering 
freshmen in to “entertain” them while they wrig¬ 
gled unashamedly to the beating jazz. 

But now . . . Dean Agnes Watson would see 
for herself. Not with any idea of personal or 
petty vengeance but to strike at the very root of 
the evil that to her mind was gnawing at the 
morals of the State University like a foul ulcer— 
modernity. The modernity of jazz and jungle 
186] 


BASS DRUMS 


dancing, of raw styles and rouge, of novels and 
frankness and unashamed sex. She knew posi¬ 
tively that they were not dancing six inches apart 
in obedience to the edict she had issued when the 
shimmy dances had come straight from the black 
and tan cabarets of Chicago to the hectic sex- 
swirl that was the State University. 

It wasn’t easy for the dean of women, this 
resolution to go out alone and try to see from the 
sidewalk what was going on behind those half- 
drawn drapes from which issued the tom-tom 
rhythm of jazz music. She would have pre¬ 
ferred to go accompanied by Prof. Gabler or 
Dean Abrams and to announce herself in the 
regular way. 

“But something has to be done,” she told her¬ 
self as she waited for ten o’clock to come. “It is 
an unusual situation and it must be handled in an 
unusual manner.” 

Yes, something drastic. Hadn’t she tried for 
two years to be fair and tolerant and mindful of 
the indiscretions of youth? And what had it 
accomplished ? 

The handkerchief incident! Her full, smooth 
cheeks felt suddenly hot as she thought of the 
humiliation it had heaped upon her. She had 
meant to be so understanding and so tolerant. 
Addressing at the Y. W. C. A. a group of several 

[187 


TOWN AND GOWN 


« 

hundred freshman girls she had warned them of 
the dangers of modern dancing. 

“And if . . . well, I believe that it is my duty 
to tell you . . .if you should ever feel that a 
dance is influencing you adversely, don't hesitate 
. . . don't hesitate. Drop your handkerchief or 
do something else concrete to break the spell. 
Music and moods can be dangerous." 

For the next three semesters the student daily 
newspaper and the student annual and the humor¬ 
ous magazine had carried sly, intangible refer¬ 
ences, puns, jests about the subject of dropping 
handkerchiefs. Just as these publications (she 
sometimes wished that they were suppressed) 
had mocked her in cartoon and joke column about 
her address at the girls' gym class in which she 
had declared that the co-ed could aspire to nothing 
better in life than to be sweet and helpful. Just 
as these publications brazenly hinted that she and 
Dean Abrams had paid stool pigeons or spies cir¬ 
culating among the student body to report in¬ 
fractions of rules. 

Oh, they were hard, brazen, common—yes, 
vulgar. She could not help feeling bitter about it 
at times. They dressed like chorus girls and they 
seemed, many of them, to have no higher ideals. 
There were, of course, hundreds of sweet, lovable 
girls in the University but the dean of women had 
regretfully to admit that they were not the most 
188] 


BASS DRUMS 


prominent or popular as compared with Dorothy 
Ambrose and Patricia Perdue and such girls. 

It was the brazen, frank thing that seemed to 
attract in this perverted day; the girl who barely 
kept on the safe side of expulsion from the Uni¬ 
versity. Like Patricia Perdue who, in a student 
newspaper article giving the favorite mottoes of 
campus undergraduate celebrities, declared hers 
to be a quotation from Balzac: '‘Woman's virtue 
is Man’s greatest invention.” Or Dorothy Am¬ 
brose, the picture of whose pretty head was pub¬ 
lished in last year’s student annual as if it were 
growing on the statue of Venus de Milo. 

In the latter incident Dean Watson had taken 
immediate steps to bring about the expulsion of 
the guilty editor and had called Miss Ambrose 
into her office to assure her of the sympathy of 
the University with her in her humiliation. 

“It is a terrible occurrence.” Dean Watson 
was agitated. 

Poised, sophisticated, blase, Dot Ambrose 
crossed her knees and smiled wearily. 

“Well, really, you know, Dean Watson, I don’t 
mind it. It was meant only as a little joke. I 
think a girl ought to be a good sport if she gets 
roasted in the annual.” 

As the girl recrossed her legs Dean Watson 
noticed that an inch of white knee showed be¬ 
tween the hem of her skirt and her rolled-down 

[189 


TOWN AND GOWN 


silk stockings. Almost shyly the dean of women 
pointed to it. Nonchalantly, even tolerantly, Dot 
Ambrose pulled her skirt down. 

The chief reason why Ted Ireland, the editor 
who published the picture, wasn’t expelled proved 
to be the skilful testimony of Dot Ambrose on 
his behalf. 

What a hideous contrast it all was to the little 
eastern college where the dean of women had 
taken her A. B. before going abroad to study! 
She thought of the closely guarded dormitories, 
the quiet campus, the stringent rules, the sweet¬ 
ness and modesty of the girls then—and now— 

The vulgarity of their dress, their frankness, 
their cigarettes, their dancing, the things they 
read, the shows they saw—a mad sex-swirl! 
There was still sweetness and modesty and re¬ 
ligion even now, but one of these young hoydens 
of modernity was enough to make her forget and 
overlook a score of the real young women of the 
State University. 

II 

It was ten o’clock. The dean of women went 
to the full-length mirror in the hall of her little 
apartment and put on her coat and hat. She 
looked at herself carefully in the glass, the virgin 
of forty-four years, and noted the paleness of 
her cheeks. She had on a satin waist that was 
190] 


BASS DRUMS 


meant to serve as an example of a garment that 
was at the same time modest, sensible and suffi¬ 
ciently modish. Her carefully corseted figure 
was almost voluptuously youthful in appearance 
and her serge skirt draped neatly over her low- 
heeled shoes. Her features, the careful brown 
eyes, the fine nose, smooth skin and full lips, did 
not come within ten years of accurately proclaim¬ 
ing her real age. 

She was inwardly agitated as she closed the 
door to the apartment. . . . Fraternity Row was 
melodious with lights; mellow Japanese lanterns, 
exotic drapery, dim porches. Giant shadows 
against the windows, the dancers could be seen 
inside the Pi Omega sorority house; improbable 
marionettes swaying grotesquely to the low, tur¬ 
bulent notes of a jazz orchestra. 

The dean of women stood silent under the 
drooping catalpa trees at the edge of the lawn. 
This spot was shelteringly dark and there was 
about it the moist, green smell of darkness and 
of grass and trees and impending rain. It all 
came as a contrast to the purple, sensuous per¬ 
fume that she felt must be intertwined with the 
music coming from the part-open windows. As 
her eyes grew accustomed to the night she saw a 
couple seated among the vines at the foot of the 
brick porch. They were silently embracing. Her 
heart beat faster and she turned her head. From 

[191 


TOWN AND GOWN 


the blackness of the A. O. G. fraternity house 
just across the narrow street she saw four tiny 
cigarettes glowing. She counted them twice. 

The leaves of the black catalpa overhead were 
black splotches on the paler sky and there was a 
weak, sentimental moon. The dean of women felt 
her hand trembling futilely as the music stopped 
with a harsh, leering crash. She hovered closer 
to the shadows. 

A flash of cream and black under the Japanese 
lanterns on the porch and she saw a couple run 
down the steps and out across the pavement. She 
heard their footsteps stop and lost sight of them 
in the shadows that blotted the A. O. G. porch 
from her view. When the music started they 
came back, running, hand in hand, and the dean 
of women saw four cigarettes glow again on the 
steps of the A. O. G. house. 

Inside the Pi Omega house they were dancing 
once more. Six inches apart? No. None. 
Frankly clamped together were the shadows she 
saw. 

She watched for another moment, then turned 
and left. ... It was hateful to her: this. But 
something had to be done, something that would 
strike at the very roots of the evil. It was for 
their good—and they scoffed at her. 

She resisted a sudden inclination to tiptoe as 
she passed a strolling couple on the sidewalk. She 
192] 


BASS DRUMS 

noticed that they were holding hands. With ner¬ 
vous little pats she smoothed out a tiny wrinkle 
in her glove. 

She did not stop when she passed the next so¬ 
rority house. One curtain was up and she scru¬ 
tinized the dancers as she walked by. No, not so 
vulgar at this old and conservative sorority. They 
were, possibly, dancing a bit too close, but the 
porch was well lit and there was a lighter, more 
youthful note to the music. The dancing was 
faster, more complicated. 

The Y. W. C. A. she held to be a model of pro¬ 
priety. From a block away she could see the 
dancers through the unshaded windows. The 
wide porch was glaring with incandescence and 
the figures within were loping long and jerkily 
to a fast one-step. As she walked by on the other 
side of the street she could see every movement. 
Many of the couples were the regulation six inches 
apart. 

Ill 

She turned off Fraternity Row at the next dark 
corner. (She did wish that the city would get 
that broken street lamp repaired.) 

For it was, after all, the Alpha Upsilon fra¬ 
ternity that had most aroused her suspicions and 
that had been the principal reason for her tour 
of inspection. Veiled rumors about the dancing 

[193 


TOWN AND GOWN 


at the “Up” house had come to her lately. Their 
jazz orchestra. The one “moonlight” dance each 
evening when the lights in the house were turned 
off. Miss Griffith, of the Department of English, 
had heard some of her undergraduates say that 
the shimmy and the jelly bean were done more 
daringly there than at any other house on the 
campus. Three “Ups” had been expelled the 
year before for drunkenness. And there were 
those stories of parties with chorus girls. Noth¬ 
ing actually proved, of course, but . . . 

She stopped on the sidewalk in the shadows of 
the giant maples. There was something sinister 
in the dark outline against the pale stars of the 
three-story stone building set far back in the 
lawn among the black silhouettes of trees. The 
lights in the French windows were so grouped as 
to give the appearance of a face, an old, lecherous 
face with one eye shut and mouth cynically awry. 
The porch was quite dim and she was too far 
away to see even shadows through the thick 
drapes and the small panes of the windows. 

A chill, damp mist rose from the grass as she 
started cautiously to walk across the lawn. The 
dean of women drew her coat more closely about 
her throat. There under the low trees in the 
silent lawn the sudden clattering of a street car 
a few blocks away startled her. The automobiles 

194] 


BASS DRUMS 

drawn up to the curb in front seemed out of 
place. 

The shadows were inky by the side of the vine- 
clad pagoda. It was only twenty feet from the 
house. There had been no music since she ar¬ 
rived and the sound of voices together with an oc¬ 
casional laugh came faintly to her from the seem¬ 
ingly opaque depths of the old stone “Up” house. 
Nothing could be seen through the drapes be¬ 
hind the French windows except when some 
figures passed close to them. 

The chaperons ? They probably had the chaper¬ 
ons in the reading room on the second floor, with 
freshmen “entertaining” them. 

The music started. The dim light which shim¬ 
mered like a veil from the windows to the grass 
at her feet was suddenly interrupted by long, 
dangling shadows. Then, without warning, the 
lights went out. The dean of women blinked and 
started back as she faced a first floor shrouded 
in darkness so thick that she could not even see 
the outlines of the porch. The “moonlight” 
dance! 

It was a strange, throbbing, discordant music 
that she had never heard before, not even from 
the other jazz orchestras about the campus. It 
began with the crash of harsh bells, the drawn- 
out moan of saxophones and the uncouth rever¬ 
beration of a drum. In another moment it was 

[195 


TOWN AND GOWN 


a living thing; a mottled serpent twitching moistly 
in and out of impossible harmonies, threshing 
itself brassily against the night air, sometimes 
darting a scarlet, forked tongue. 

The drum and cornets stopped and the saxo¬ 
phones twisted up and up in a squeal of savage 
invitation. Then all joined in a moaning blare 
> . . Venus leering. 

The dean of women felt her heart beating so 
hard that its blows against her nerveless body 
seemed to be sapping her strength. With trem¬ 
bling hand she clung to the vines of the pagoda. 

There was and there was not a harmony to this 
stripped, twisting music. It consisted more of a 
naked rhythm that went on in its menacing pur¬ 
pose undisturbed by the blasts of the cornets and 
the saxophones, a rhythm that never faltered in 
its double beating. Yes, it was the drum that 
caused it. 

She closed her eyes for a moment and the 
rhythm carried to her a sudden picture of dim, 
exotic foliage and under it naked savages on their 
knees, swaying from side to side . . . swaying 
. . . swaying. She opened her eyes almost in 
terror. 

Her limbs felt impotent and her breath came 
quickly. It was even more horrible now, for the 
cornets and saxophones had stopped and the mo¬ 
notonous beat of the bass drum seemed to carry 
i 9 6] 


BASS DRUMS 


with it all of the leering- and throbbing of the 
negroid melody that had been silenced. The 
drum and the slow, accompanying shuffle of the 
feet. 

Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom! Shrinking back 
among the vines she felt almost a physical pain at 
the blows of sound. 

More ominous yet were the dancers’ steps— 
old, slow, measured. A silence which seemed 
suffocating between each movement. Swaying 
. . . swaying . . . swaying. 

The dean of women suddenly felt old and hag¬ 
gard and helpless, beaten down by the leering 
rhythm and the shuffle of feet. The picture of 
slowly swaying savages came to her again and a 
terrifying weakness passed over her like a hot, 
moist wind. She felt puny and powerless in the 
sight of the world’s nakedness, pitted against an 
obscene infinity. 

Her lips twitching, she turned her pale face 
to the stars. 

“Oh, Christ!” 

She turned, stumbled, and fled to the side¬ 
walk. . . . 

Two days later the dean of women issued a 
formal edict prohibiting bass drums at University 
dances. 


[197 



Tenth Episode: 

THE STRANGEST SERENADE 


From the Annual Catalogue of the Uni¬ 
versity: “The purpose of the Col¬ 
lege of Liberal Arts and Sciences is , 
first , to secure to its students a lib¬ 
eral education , including both the 
humanities and the sciences ” 







X: The Strangest Serenade 


i 


'\ /!T RS - J- BLEEKER MANFRED would 
v/| never attend one of Kiril Kuldaroff’s 
recitals. The fact was remarked only 
because Mrs. J. Bleeker Manfred did the things 
everyone else did and everyone was going to hear 
the violinist, Kuldaroff, that year. 

Even the most profanely cynical free verse 
writer of the day grew tenderly profane over 
the “hairy fists” and “guts” that he felt were sug¬ 
gested by KuldarofFs mad music. And by way 
of contrast the poem spoke of another quality- 


“Be still, damn you! . . . That last soaring note 
Is a frail yellow leaf 

Twirled against a slate sky . . . summer is ended.” 


Although she learned from all sources of the 
poignancy and passion and strangeness that the 
genius Kuldarofif put into his playing Betty Man¬ 
fred was gently obdurate in her determination 
never to hear him. Her husband (who was the 
Manfred, famous for Manfred’s Table Salt) 

[201 





TOWN AND GOWN 

stepped briskly into her dressing room one after¬ 
noon, announcing: 

“I took a box for KuldarofFs concert Satur¬ 
day. He seems to be quite the thing this season, 
Betty. Very curious fellow, they say. A Rus¬ 
sian. Or Pole, is it? Never can remember these 
foreigners’ oflf’s and iski’s. Why don’t they have 
decent names?” 

Betty was seated before a mirror examining 
a tiny wrinkle at the corner of her left eye. She 
had just had her back massaged. The creamy 
flesh that had been pummeled, kneaded with per¬ 
fumed lotions and powdered, curved into a deli¬ 
cate, velvety little roll along the top of her tight 
black and silver bodice. 

“Oh, it’s impossible,” she said, continuing to 
smooth the insidious wrinkle with a pointed 
forefinger, “I have a million engagements for 
Saturday.” 

Of course the matter dropped there. 

II 

Her achievement of the glittering name, Man¬ 
fred, had been an ambition realized shortly after 
her graduation from the State University. 

Mrs. J. Bleeker Manfred, nee Betty Udell, was 
one of those rare people who achieve what they 
want and like it after they get it. Most girls 
202] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

of her class achieved or struggled to achieve what 
their mothers wanted for them. It follows that 
they did not like what they got. But dictates were 
not laid down by an aspiring parent for Betty 
to follow. Her widowed mother was meek and 
hesitant. Beyond complying hopefully with 
Betty’s careful plans she was a negligible adjunct 
to her daughter’s ambitions. Betty considered 
that Mrs. Udell did very nicely as a respectable 
background; she was slim, dressed in soft black 
crepes and had her hair marcelled regularly. 

As Betty Udell, she had perceived that the gods 
had been good to her but not good enough. She 
had beauty and some money but not as much 
money as she wanted; adulation, but not as much 
as she thought she deserved; and really no social 
position worth mentioning, she felt. It gave her 
a little ache of longing—which was really in part 
a genuine desire for beauty—to see Mrs. Richie 
Gespell in an ermine cloak, ashes-of-roses satin 
fluttering in draperies about her silken knees, 
step out of a limousine and enter a theater door. 

Betty was keenly conscious that the society 
column knew the name of Udell no more than 
Paris knew her hat and gown. It was not that 
she failed of loveliness, but she was convinced 
that she would look more lovely in ermine—that 
ashes-of-roses satin would become her more than 
the woman in the limousine. And she went on to 

[203 


TOWN AND GOWN 


covet the limousine and the theater tickets and the 
tall escort—a celebrity—in his high silk hat. 
Betty Udell’s aspirations seldom fell short of 
what she deemed the magnificent. 

She set about quietly, subtly to achieve them. 
There was an extraordinary quality of strength, 
of hardness, beneath her appearance of soft in¬ 
nocence. She was tall with an appealing slender¬ 
ness but her face with its expression of engaging 
lucidity matched her slenderness rather than her 
height. The faint rouge she dusted delicately in 
two childishly round spots on her cheekbones 
gave her really satin skin its final allurement. 
Her eyes were touchingly youthful and wide and 
blue. And most wistful of all was that short, 
tender upper lip of hers that always curled away 
a little from the two tiny white front teeth with 
the slight gap between them. 


Ill 

At the State University Dean Agnes Watson 
had pronounced her “unconditionally sweet”. 
This impression was exactly the one Betty had 
meant the dean to have. She had made certain 
overcuts. Signed excuses from Dean Watson 
were convenient, to say the least. 

She had decided to go to the State University 
after a long consideration of which her mother 
204] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

knew nothing. It was near the city but not too 
near; it was not too aristocratic for her to be 
able to attain its highest circles; it had a cham¬ 
pion football team that year; and, most important, 
certain girls from her high school club had been 
taken into the sorority of Pi Omega. 

She intended to “make” Pi Omega. 

Betty Udell did not see the lichens on the old 
campus trees, the ivy on crumbling University 
Hall, the carved “Time goes, Love stays” on the 
sun dial, the golden light and wavering shadows 
that mottled the grass in late afternoon. She 
noted a Rolls Royce parked across from the audi¬ 
torium, the Sigma Chi emblem on a passing 
junior's vest, an expensive squirrel wrap worn 
by a girl with a Pi Phi pin and the unutterable 
dowdiness of a woman instructor whom some¬ 
one had indicated to her as her “adviser.” She 
could scarcely concentrate her mind on this 
woman long enough to answer the questions im¬ 
portant to her curriculum. Over the woman’s 
head her eyes were absorbing with their wide, in¬ 
nocent stare all the details they could glean as to 
the dress, manners and fraternities of the State 
University. 

There went Marj Rider, a high school acquaint¬ 
ance, at the side of Dot Ambrose. Dot was 
also from Chicago. She was known everywhere. 
She was a Pi Omega. She had made it the im- 

[205 


TOWN AND GOWN 


portant sorority it was. Envying the Rider girl 
Betty looked steadily at her, hoping she would 
speak, but she was chattering and glancing about 
with proud, nervously darting eyes that observed 
everything and nothing. 

Betty felt nervous, too, and intent. The su¬ 
periority she had experienced for a brief moment 
of exhilaration at the shabby station had van¬ 
ished. The State University was all so very 
large and confusing and it was so important to 
make the right kind of a start. She was a bit 
anxious about the dates she had made with soror¬ 
ities. She was to go to the Upsilon Phi house that 
evening for dinner and would take tea with the 
Kappas the next afternoon. But she had no 
engagements with the Pi Omega’s—yet. 

“Do you know what you’d like your major to 
be?” inquired Miss Griffith, the instructor who 
was advising her. 

“No,” said Betty helplessly. The little, fright¬ 
ened breath she drew was in dread of Pi Omega’s 
indifference to her, but Miss Griffith, no doubt, 
attributed it to awe and reverence for the de¬ 
partment. 

“I am sorry I have not the time to go into 
this more thoroughly with you,” said the adviser, 
indulgently, rubbing her broad brow with a large, 
capable hand. “If I were you I should just take 
a general course in Liberal Arts and Sciences and 
206] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

decide upon my major later. Though I’m sure 
you would enjoy English/’ (Miss Griffith was 
of the Department of English herself and rather 
doubted if it could be worth one’s while to 
specialize in anything else.) 

“Oh, yes, I’m sure I would,” said Betty in 
her high, childish voice, smiling her curling rose- 
leaf smile. She moved out of the crowded office 
with a sense of boredom at the dowdy woman’s 
slow, careful voice and hastily scrawled “Gen. 
L. A. and S.” in purple ink where it said 
COURSE on her study list, and “English” where 
it stipulated MAJOR. 

“Scared child,” observed Miss Griffith to Dean 
Fannicott at the next desk. 

“Quite charming,” he commented coldly. 

It was with no more ado that Betty Udell 
decided for her college career what serious 
minded students hestitated over for months, even 
years. It was with no more ado that she elected 
the courses suggested to her by juniors as “pipes” 
and bought all the text books written by in¬ 
structors which they, themselves, recommended 
as “not necessary but valuable to the course”. 

In one class which a solicitous upper classman 
had recommended as soft, Betty was horribly 
alarmed to hear the instructor—a tall, loose- 
jointed, bushy-browed Professor Dyrcks, who sat 
carelessly on the desk and continually scratched 

[207 


TOWN AND GOWN 


a badly-shaven cheek with his thumb—to hear 
this man, who moved his head so awkwardly and 
smiled so politely as he called the roll, drawl in a 
delightful voice, “I—ah—hear that this course is 
known as a—ah—pipe. Now, it may have been 
in the—ah—uh—dim past. However that may 
be, times change, times change. In the future, my 
dear young friends, this course will be proclaimed 
as the stiffest course at the State University. . . . 
In short, not more than one or two of yon need 
expect passing remarks at all! ,f 

The huge assemblage of students who had en¬ 
rolled in good faith that the whole thing was 
“nothing but a bunch of lectures,” as upper class- 
men had assured them, shifted uneasily and won¬ 
dered if they could get permission to drop the 
course. 

“The nasty old beast!” Betty raged inwardly. 
She felt a keen sense of the injustice of the world 
that put her at the mercy of a scraggly-haired, 
sloppily dressed man like this one sprawled against 
his desk. She was furious with all misguided 
upper classmen, especially Upsilon Phi’s—“a 
cheap bunch,” she had decided days ago. “Not 
even a national sorority.” 

Betty found it easy to convince Miss Griffith, 
as her adviser, that she must drop Dyrcks’ course. 
It was also necessary to go to the professor to 
get his permission. 

208] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

She entered the English office one Saturday 
morning, wearing a purple broadcloth suit with 
high choker collar of fluffy gray fur. She hoped 
that her smart appearance would indirectly fur¬ 
ther her cause. Her short blonde hair stood out 
in silky ringlets. 

She was vaguely conscious of a swarthy man 

she had seen in class, sitting on the bench out- 

• 

side Professor Dyrcks’ private door. The office 
was dim, musty. A cottonwood, half stripped of 
its leaves, scraped one naked branch sadly, 
monotonously against the unwashed window. 

The swarthy man moved over and she sat 
down beside him on the bench. He glanced up 
from a blue book lettered “From The Verse Of 
Li Po”. Staring at her, his wide, shining, black 
eyes were like mirrors absorbing her image and, 
hazily, she felt disturbed by this look. She 
tabulated him as an “insolent foreigner”. 

Betty had little curiosity. She did not won¬ 
der for a minute about his nationality or about 
the book he was reading. She was really little 
more aware of him—of Kiril Kuldaroff—than 
of the mournful cottonwood with its naked branch 
groping and sighing at the unwashed window. 

She sat there looking at her little gloved hands, 
thinking of the two invitations she had received 
from the two sororities that had rushed her. Of 
Upsilon Phi she thought with haughty scorn— 

[209 


TOWN AND GOWN 


of the Kappas she thought with tentative con¬ 
sideration—and of Pi Omega she thought with 
longing and discomfiture and respect, for it had 
made no advances at all. 

Kuldarofif was unable to go on reading his thin, 
blue book of Chinese poetry. He shuffled his feet 
and glanced up every few moments from under 
his shadowy lashes. To him Betty Udell must 
have seemed, as she did to nearly everyone, wist¬ 
fully young and frail and tender. An apple blos¬ 
som thing wafted lightly down from some 
springtime tree of innocence. . * She looked 
that. 

Most phases of the University life had little 
significance for his Slavic nature. He found the 
University just a place to read and converse 
in. His room—his meals—his appearance—he 
thought little of them. He was engrossed in books 
and music. But he was not as intent on either 
of these as on his own ego. Sometimes a far¬ 
away voice sounded through his dreaming and 
he roused from his slumbrous contemplation of 
himself in relation to the abstract as a sleeper 
might rise and seek a moonlit window. These 
voices and images that called him out of himself 
were real and yet unreal. For though they were 
from the actual world they were hazed over by 
the illusions of his own moods. He found life 
continually strange. People were more of phan- 
2 io] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

tasy to him than Paolo and Francesca or Don 
Quixote or Sappho. 

But already two individuals had penetrated his 
deep unconsciousness: the Siamese student with 
whom he roomed that year and Professor Dyrcks, 
whose voice sang in his ears like music. Made 
unnaturally shy by the strange customs of an 
inexplicable country, Kuldaroff was in reality 
bold. His egotism was that of genius beginning 
to recognize itself. He did not doubt but that 
he could go to Dyrcks and make articulate many 
thoughts and desires and that Dyrcks would listen 
and find him coherent. 

And now this girl. . . . He looked at her and 
looked at her and had no way of knowing that 
her soul was not as he thought—gentle and 
velvety as the inner surface of a flower petal. 

That evening in the dingy room he shared with 
Thian Kit Lin, Kuldaroff sat at the window 
brooding at the mellow fall night. Round 
globules of light hung like moons in the tree- 
arched street. A chill reminder of Youth’s con¬ 
flict with Death and final capitulation, Autumn 
stalked down there stinging the ashen poplar 
leaves and the late wine-red dahlias with the 
poison of her frost. The tinkling of mandolins, 
the plaintive ukuleles, the rushing flash of speed¬ 
ing cars and sudden bursts of crude harmony— 
these were the trappings of a shadow world. 

[211 


TOWN AND GOWN 

But the face of his friend, Lin, in the bright 
square of lamplight, the sound of those yellow 
fingers tapping a nervous, Oriental tattoo on 
the baize-covered table, the memory of Dyrcks’ 
voice that afternoon speaking gently and kindly 
of life—these were real. And with them Kiril 
Kuldarofif placed as real the soft oval of a girl’s 
face, the wide luminousness of her eyes, the 
delicate lift of her fresh, curled lips, the sheer 
whiteness of the shining body his imagination 
gave her, the grace of her ways and the dreams 
and desires of her. And as he brooded he chanted 
aloud in a guttural Russian accent: 

By the south side of the bridge at Ten-Shin 

With yellow gold and white jewels 

we paid for the songs and laughter, 

And we were drunk for month after month, 
forgetting the kings and princes. 

Thian Kit Lin looked up with an answering 
flame in his inscrutable eyes and replied, chant¬ 
ing also from the same translation of Li Po: 

What is the use of talking! And there is no end of 
talking— 

There is no end of things in the heart. 

IV 

The purple broadcloth suit did not swerve Pro¬ 
fessor Dyrcks in his decision that Betty Udell 
must go on with his course. But perhaps it made 
212 ] 



THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

him look at her with a gaze that was shrewd but 
not utterly impervious and say: 

“Why, Miss Udell, I couldn’t think of allowing 
you to leave my class. If it gets too hard for you 
don’t be afraid to come up and ask any questions 
that trouble you.” 

At the end of the semester she was one of a 
number of panic stricken youngsters to discover 
that Dyrcks had been chaffing and that he had 
politely passed them all with the uniform grade 
of “B”! 

She had seen Kuldaroff three times without see¬ 
ing him. She, who had learned to ask quickly on 
hearing a man’s name “What is he?”, meaning 
“To which national fraternity does he belong?”, 
still tabulated Kuldaroff as an “insolent for¬ 
eigner”. (She confused all foreigners with mis¬ 
sionaries, and believed that all foreign students in 
the State University would eventually return to 
their countries to preach.) 

And he saw her three times a week without 
seeing her—except as a beautiful illusion of his 
own soul. But he thought that illusion was real 
and a growing desire for her smouldered in his 
heart. 

For her part Betty was miserable these dis¬ 
turbing months. She had passed the whole 
semester in the degraded social position of a non¬ 
sorority girl. She was too proud to use the 

[213 


TOWN AND GOWN 


dog-eared excuse of the barb—“they asked me but 
I turned them down”, although in her case it 
would have been true. She had refused the 
Kappas reluctantly; still she did not feel com¬ 
fortable with some of them. One girl, said to 
possess a Phi Beta Kappa pin, had insisted that 
fraternities were absurd, barbarous and snobbish 
and had explained her own membership unblush- 
ingly on the score that she liked good food and 
couldn’t get it elsewhere. The rest of the sisters 
had seemed a trifle horrified and yet afraid to 
silence her because she was a senior. Betty Udell 
thought this Cora Franck stupid and in very bad 
form, but went about quoting her because every¬ 
one knew her as “one of the most active girls 
on the campus”. 

It was not that kind of activity that Betty 
wanted. She admired inordinately the kind of 
game Dot Ambrose was playing—fast, loose, 
feverishly arresting. Betty saw her day after 
day—a girl slim and blonde like Betty, herself, 
but voluptuous and with a magnificent carriage 
and a coolly insinuating smile. How glorious she 
looked leaving a dance or a football game, leaning 
back in Ward Hobart’s long racer, her arm care¬ 
lessly along the back of his seat, her tailored suit 
dark and perfectly cut, her hair cleverly severe 
beneath her pheasant feather toque to set oflf in 
214] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

cameo effect her strikingly made-up cheeks and 
lips and eyes. 

And then the shockingly daring things they 
put about her in the college annual and the 
humorous column of the students’ magazine! 
Verses written to her dancing, about her booze 
parties, of the brand of cigarettes she smoked. 
Of course there were other girls who did the 
same things but none was so touted for none was 
so colorful as Dot Ambrose. Betty gasped, was 
a trifle shocked, at the picture in one annual of 
the Venus de Milo in which Ted Ireland, the 
editor, had inserted a snap shot of Dot’s head. 
Still Betty was convinced that even this strident 
roast was highly complimentary to the college 
widow. 

During the mid-semester examination she did 
a great deal of intensive thinking, lying on the 
day-bed in her room, smoking, and glancing into 
a mirror in the intervals of concentrated thought 
to wonder if she really did resemble Dot Ambrose. 
She still meant to “make” Pi Omega. She must f 
How she hated those catty high school friends 
who had gone into it and would apparently do 
nothing for her! She felt sure they had damaged 
her some way. Perhaps they disapproved of the 
street she and her mother lived on in Chicago— 
North Dearborn—where they still maintained 
an old brown front in that district of outworn 

[215 


TOWN AND GOWN 

aristocrats’ mansions metamorphosed into room¬ 
ing houses. 

In that vacation Betty not only thought but 
acted. She bought a new fur coat of striking 
black and white civet; she persuaded her mother 
to let her take the neat little car back with her; 
and—her greatest triumph—succeeded in getting 
her to lease the old house and take a small apart¬ 
ment on Sheridan Road. “One’s address does 
mean such a lot,” mused Betty. 

Just two weeks after her return to school she 
began to receive invitations from Pi Omega. 
She felt in sight of the final goal. And then arose 
that annoying complication of Kiril Kuldaroff. 

Licensed by the fact that they had passed a 
semester together in class he spoke to her one 
day as she was coming out of the library. She 
answered him absently. A second time when she 
was with a Pi Omega getting a chocolate malted 
milk, Kuldaroff stepped in to buy tobacco and, 
seeing her, nodded and smiled, his great black 
eyes hypnotic. When he was gone the Pi Omega 
said: 

“Do you know him ?” curiously. 

“M-m-m—” murmured Betty, flushing. “In 
my class once. Awful fish.” 

And then one cataclysmic day he overtook her 
when she was walking across the campus to her 
car and they met Dot Ambrose, herself! . . . 
216] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

He was conscious only of his own surging dis¬ 
coveries—already Spring had sent the world 
tentative messengers. He had seen a rose¬ 
breasted grosbeak, he told Betty excitedly—he 
had heard of them in poems but had never seen 
one before. He was a Russian—it was a very 
strange country here. He could not understand 
it. America had begun so gloriously with her 
revolution and she was failing so miserably now. 
Was there any hope for her ? What did she mean 
by this ugly, mediocre standardization of every¬ 
thing? Ugly machinery for everything—no free¬ 
dom of thought—no freedom of speech. He 
would like to blow America all up and see her 
start over. 

Betty looked at him, frightened. She was cer¬ 
tain that he was a Nihilist, whatever that was. 
But he was reading in her eyes an echo of the 
warm call he had heard from Spring that after¬ 
noon. 

He returned her look boldly; again in his im¬ 
agination he was attributing to her a luminous 
soul and a shining, white body. He was a young 
dreamer . . . and he thought that some day he 
could have her. 

Betty hastily seated herself in her car. But 
Kuldaroff, superbly rude, leaned against the door 
of it. Loitering along the footpath he espied 
his friend, Thian Kit Lin. 


[217 


TOWN AND GOWN 


“Meet my roommate, Mr. Lin!” cried Kuldar- 
off joyously. Lin paused and bowed in polite 
confusion. The only American women he had 
yet met were Dean Watson, a history instructor 
and two badly dressed grinds. Thian Kit Lin, 
who was an epicure in the matter of a rhythmic 
line of verse and a beautiful woman, paid homage 
to the charming creature with his most delicate 
smile. 

Exactly at this embarrassing point in affairs, 
Dot Ambrose rode by. She spoke to Betty curtly. 

Betty choked and crimsoned. She felt that she 
could not endure this queer, long-haired fool and 
his Chinaman friend. She was unconscious of 
just how she disengaged herself and managed to 
drive away. 

Now the worst happened. She stopped re¬ 
ceiving invitations from Pi Omega. And Kulda- 
roff continued to speak to her and she, miserably, 
to answer him; she had pursued so long the policy 
of being “sweet” to everyone no matter what 
hard things she was thinking, that now her habit 
reacted on her as a boomerang. It was almost a 
physical impossibility for Betty Udell to snub 
Kuldaroff however much she hated him. She 
would stand listening to his mad observations 
about America, smiling her curling, rose-leaf 
smile, uneasy at first because she dreaded the cold 
looks of Pi Omega's and then because she was at 
218] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

once frightened and fascinated by the way he 
looked at her. And once or twice it really en¬ 
tered her mind that there was something startling 
and different about him—that perhaps he was the 
kind of an adventurer you read about in novels, 
some daring, ruthless revolutionist who could dis¬ 
rupt whole nations with his intrigues. But, oh, 
he was so impossibly dressed! His dreadful hands 
and nervous manner! 

She was even growing a little defiant over the 
queer turn events had taken—to her sensitive 
mind she was getting to be an outcast, dragged 
down by this persistent follower to some muggy 
borderland outside the neat pale set by Pi Omega. 

And then Dot Ambrose took things in her 
hands. . . . She went to the private house where 
Betty stayed and went straight to her room un¬ 
expectedly one afternoon. She seated herself un¬ 
invited. Betty’s heart surged with emotions— 
what could Dot want? She hadn’t come to “bid” 
her at last? And there was a half conscious re¬ 
sentment tugging at her, too, in a way that had 
only occurred since she knew Kuldaroff. 

They spoke of commonplaces for a moment until 
an expectant silence fell. “Look here, Betty,” Dot 
began deliberately, “you’re an awfully nice little 

girl-” she fumbled at an inlaid cigarette case 

and Betty saw that it contained a man’s cheap, 
strong brand, “—you’re awfully nice,” Dot re- 

[219 



TOWN AND GOWN 


peated murmurously, at home now and smoking 
lazily, “just awfully dear and all that. Sweet. 
Everything.” She waved her hand in a gesture 
that tacitly enumerated Betty’s nice address and 
her car and civet coat as constituting the “every¬ 
thing” that Pi Omega demanded. “But, look 
here; honestly now, my dear, what do you see in 
that Kuldaroff?” 

“Eve never spoken more than a few words to 
him in my life,” said Betty evenly. 

“Really?” Dot gazed at her in honest surprise. 
“H’m’m—some story around—those fool fresh¬ 
men of ours—now that’s really so, is it? Never 
even been out with the man?” 

“No! How could I? Him!” Betty was dis¬ 
tressed. 

Dot looked at her with amused, sophisticated 
eyes. 

“I’d been sort of admiring your independence, 
to tell the truth. I never pay any attention to 
the opinions of these damned idiots around here, 
myself. . . . But, of course, it’s different with a 
freshman. And non-sorority—my dear, it’s hard 
to play a single hand in this game. To get by with 
the men you have to be in solid with the women 
first. Oh, a few girls have won out alone—take 
Patsy Perdue—she went to every fraternity for¬ 
mal on the campus and snapped her fingers in 
the faces of all sororities. You’d have to play a 
220] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 


little faster than I'd like to see you, though— 

you’re the darndest prettiest thing-” She 

tweaked Betty’s ear in playful tenderness and 
Betty gazed at her with puzzled, wide, blue eyes. 

She rose to go and stood at the door, swinging 
her vanity bag thoughtfully. 

“I think if you could manage never to be seen 
speaking to him—maybe I could—fix things,” 
she said, with direct insinuation. (It wasn’t form 
for a sorority girl to be discussing such things 
with a barb.) 

“But how can I help it?” Betty appealed, 
eagerly. “He just forces me to—it’s awfully hard 
for me to snub people.” 

“Yes, it would be. Well, it would be hard for 
anyone to say a thing like that. Write him a 
note. You may use our name if you like. Blame 
us.” 

* 

She smiled blandly—was gone. 


V 

Betty awoke at midnight on a certain night with 
a keen sense that the world had grown unfamiliar 
while she slept. She wondered if she had gone 
mad. Strange music was pouring in her window. 
She sat bolt upright, a lone little figure, straight 

and slim in her clinging gown. Her short hair 

[221 



TOWN AND GOWN 


lying in ringlets on her neck made her look a 
piquant child. 

Because it was midnight and because the music 
was so unearthly and so near, she trembled with 
sudden emotion and crept fearfully to the open 
casement. Just below a man was playing on a 
violin. The moonlight bathed his face with white¬ 
ness. 

Life smote Betty with a sudden sense of drama. 
Her breath came queerly. . . . All at once Kiril 
Kuldaroff stopped playing and called up to her 
—“Come down!” His voice was surly, impera¬ 
tive and hoarse. 

Betty fumbled into a velvet dressing gown and 
slippers, unquestioning his right to command her 
so. There was a little darting memory in the 
back of her head that Dot Ambrose had not been 
so awfully shocked—had even “admired her in¬ 
dependence” and had derided the ordinary women 
as “damned idiots”. Maybe this—now—was 
playing the game a little faster . . . she wouldn’t 
mind—just seeing if he really was crazy over 
her—just watching those luminous eyes of his 
in the moonlight. It was different to-night—to¬ 
night nobody could see or know. It might go 
on that way. On the campus they would be 
strangers and at nights if he came this way and 
played—she shivered as she slid noiselessly down 
the stairs. 

222] 


THE STRANGEST SERENADE 

When she stood before him at last she felt 

suddenly weak and powerless and unable to face 

* 

the passion in his blazing eyes. She thought 
dreadfully that she could not resist him if he 
touched her. His strange music still wailed 
madly in her ears. 

The back yard where they stood was flooded 
by a pool of moonlight. Two poplars seemed 
straight and sinister and rustled incessantly, 
throwing little, quivering, black shadows on the 
grass. An old mop leaning against the wooden 
stoop looked grotesquely like a witch. 

Kuldaroff began to talk in a low, choked voice., 
At first it was as if he spoke a foreign language 
and she could not understand him; and then the 
words gradually leaped to her straining ears with 
unmistakable meaning. 

“—at first I thought I wanted you. But I 
don’t now. God, no! You’d have done anything 
I wanted to-night. I saw it in your face when you 
came down. Why did you come, eh? Answer 
me that!” He was snarling now horribly, 
but she dared not move. So she stood there, 
trembling, her slight hands picking at the throat 
of her velvet gown. 

“Your note! What insolence! You dared say 
that to me, to me, to me! By God, I am a strong 
man. I am an artist and you disgust me. Your 
country disgusts me. Pah, how I hate its dull 

[223 


TOWN AND GOWN 


men—its stupid morals and ideals! And its 
women—oh, its women! Hard, shrewd, ugly 
souls inside soft, beautiful bodies. . . .” He 
writhed in uncontrollable fury, and holding his 
violin carefully aside, seized her shoulder, twisted 
it painfully and flung her with all his might 
against the sharp corner of the stoop. 

And he stumbled ofif, stumbled as if he were 
drunk. He must be drunk, she thought, sobbing 
in impotent rage and rubbing her bruised knee. 


VI 

A week later Betty heard that Kiril Kuldaroff 
had left school. She was wearing a new Pi 
Omega pledge pin. 


224] 


Eleventh Episode: 
BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS 


From the Announcements of the Univer¬ 
sity: “Candidates for admission 

who come from foreign countries 
should bring complete official cre¬ 
dentials. Certificates from Oriental 
and Slavic countries must be accom¬ 
panied by certified translations ” 


XI: Between the Four Seas 


i 


HIAN KIT LIN, pagan, had received an 



invitation to Christmas dinner. Between 


the long thumb and forefinger of a hand 
which covered his lean knee like sharp outspread 
petals, he held the square envelope. The invita¬ 
tion itself, which was printed in scroll upon heavy, 
creamy paper, read: 

“In this, the joyous Yuletide season, the time 
of 'peace on earth and goodwill to men/ every 
heart in the University should be glad. To the 
students who have come from far climes to our 
University and who have no homes in this country, 
their fellow students and townsmen wish to ex¬ 
tend best wishes for the traditional Merry Christ¬ 
mas and Happy New Year. 

"It is furthermore our wish that you honor 
this home by accepting an invitation to Christmas 
dinner. And when you break the bread of good 
fellowship with them, may you know that the 
hearts of all students of the State University beat 


[227 


TOWN AND GOWN 


in sympathy with you and your splendid 
ambitions.” 

In the blank line below was written in a round 
hand in which the letter “e” was quite discon¬ 
nected from the rest of the script, the name and 
address, “Mrs. James R. Elkins, 637 West Plum 
Street.” 

The mailman who had brought the invitation 
could be seen two blocks down the street, as Thian 
Kit Lin looked through the window and slowly 
tapped his knee. The sidewalks that had been 
thronged a few days before with students pass¬ 
ing and repassing on their way to classes now 
were deserted and piled high with mournful heaps 
of dirty snow. The dripping of snow water from 
the eaves into a tin tub below, a quick and 
monotonous beating, became in the morning still¬ 
ness the ticking of some impatient clock. On the 
floor above, entirely vacated by students home for 
their vacation, every move of a listless broom 
across the carpet could be heard. There was, too, 
the heavy sound of the breathing of Kiril Kuldar- 
ofif, the roommate of Thian Kit Lin, who, after 
savagely tearing up his invitation, had sprawled 
himself across the counterpane in surly sleep. 

His eyes fixed, Thian Kit Lin tapped his knee 
with his fantastic fingers and watched through 
the window the melting and dripping world with¬ 
out. The invitation to an American Christmas 
22 8 ] 


BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS 

dinner had not come unexpectedly to Thian Kit 
Lin. 

He had, indeed, read the first tidings of it 
some ten days before in the student daily news¬ 
paper. F. Blair Golden, the editor, had penned 
an editorial: 

“Now let’s all get behind this and push—push 
hard. Push what? Why, the inviting of every 
one of our 316 foreign students to an honest-to- 
goodness American Christmas dinner! 

“No one knows the cheer that this may bring 
to some lonesome student from across the water, 
thousands of miles from his own home and family. 
These fellow-students will be the one-hundred per 
cent Americans of the future. Now let’s all of 
us get together, those of us who have our homes 
in the city, and show our fellow students from 
foreign countries some real Yuletide hospitality.” 

In a box heading it was announced in bold-face 
type that “special invitation blanks could be se¬ 
cured” at the student newspaper office. 

Thus it was, the invitation to an American 
Christmas dinner came as no surprise to Thian 
Kit Lin, the pagan from Bangkok. 

II 

By Christmas day the last traces of the snow, 
dirtiest of all, were melting under a hazy sun 

[229 


TOWN AND GOWN 


which dropped into the west as if weighted with 
blood, leaving behind it a pale stillness and a 
damp chill. In the dim room sat Thian Kit Lin, 
a translation of his poet, Li Po, enclosed by his 
pointed fingers and his eyes fixed on the dusk. 
He was already dressed for dinner. 

He put on his overcoat, a loose ulster that he 
had bought in Paris while attending the Sorbonne 
for a year, silently closed the door behind him and 
went down the stairs. Out on the sidewalk he 
made his way through the early darkness with a 
walk which can only be described as steadfast, 
a gait in which his arms and shoulders played 
no part. 

As he rang the bell at the door of 637 West 
Plum Street, and as a sudden porch-light shot him 
into urbane incandescence, he caught a glimpse of 
a bay window, a shadowy fern brushing it, and 
a pink-shaded floor lamp. Then the door was 
opened. 

“Why, good evening, Mr.-,” Mrs. James R. 

Elkins hesitated for a second. “—I was just 
sure that you were-” 

“Mr. Thian Kit Lin.” 

“Yes, Mr. Lin. We're awfully glad that you 
can be with us." 

Thian Kit Lin bowed. It was a bow that was 
slow and sweeping, a bow that was twelve cen¬ 
turies older than automobiles and the telegraph. 
230] 




BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS 

His smile contained at once the meaningless sweet¬ 
ness of a child’s and the hopeless senility of old 
age. It was—but how can a smile be at one time 
bold and shy, wooden and naive? But such was 
the smile of Thian Kit Lin. 

“I am, Madam,” he said, “privileged to be your 
guest.” 

Mrs. James R. Elkins had never been called 
“Madam” except by salesmen and in the form 
letters occasionally left in the mailbox. Not even 
then had the term been accompanied by such mel¬ 
low suavity. His English was like his smile too 
perfect and it gave the impression of an accent. 

“Just come right in,” she said, and opened the 
door wider in invitation. “That’s right; let me 
take your hat and things. . . . Please take this 
chair while I call Mr. Elkins. . . . Mr. Elkins, 
this is Mr. Lin, who is taking dinner with us this 
evening. . . . Now if you’ll excuse me I must 
go out for a moment and see about the table. 
Dinner will be ready in just a moment.” 

Ten minutes later the four of them were seated 
about the round dining room table. At the head 
was James R. Elkins with poised carving knife 
and fork, napkin tucked in his vest, portly, ruddy 
of face and nearly gray of hair. On one side was 
Eileen Elkins, a sophomore in the State Uni¬ 
versity, a plain, shell-rim-spectacled girl of 
twenty. On the other side, Mrs. James R. Elkins, 

[231 


TOWN AND GOWN 


majestically stiff and a bit stout in her corset and 
marcelled coiffure. At the foot of the table sat 
Thian Kit Lin, his round, smooth face shining 
yellow and black in the lamplight. 

The gleaming tablecloth was starched and 
showed the creases of careful ironing. The silver¬ 
ware was a luxurious frosty gray and the food 
steamed high. About the panelled dining room, 
softly lit by crimson candles on the buffet, were 
pictures; one of a platter heaped high with fruit, 
another of several hundred delegates to a con¬ 
vention. 

“The dark meat, did you say?” The voice of 
James R. Elkins expressed almost reverence for 
the roast chicken he was carving. “ Yes, sir, just 
help yourself to the bread. . . . Now China’s 
always been a mighty interesting proposition to 
me. . . . Cranberries? . . . Well, there’s fire¬ 
crackers and a lot of things that you folks over 
there had a long time before we ever heard of 
them. . . . Now if you’ll just pass your plate 
up, please.” 

There was a silence for a moment broken only 
by the clicking of the silverware on the plates. 
Mrs. James R. Elkins sat stiffly poised, bringing 
her fork up slowly and replacing it across the side 
of her plate. Thian Kit Lin used his fork with 
an ambidextrous, bird-like quickness and his head 
232] 


BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS 


was, if anything, bent a trifle too low over the 
table. 

“I think it is a splendid opportunity/’ said Mrs. 
James R. Elkins, “that so many of your young 
people have a chance to attend University here. 
This country-” 

“Let’s see,” interrupted her husband. “Oh, 
yes, I was reading just the other day in the 
Times-Gazette that there were about four hun¬ 
dred foreign students in the University here. A 
mighty good showing, it seems to me.” 

“There are many of us in America to be edu¬ 
cated,” said Thian Kit Lin, and his smile was 
answer to both of them. 

“I was just telling Mrs. Elkins the other day 
that people were mistaken in thinking China was 
behind the times. Used to be a little, of course, 
but not a bit more than any other country. Look 
at the republic they’re starting there now. And 
the way their young people come over here to get 
an education. 

“The Japs, I guess, are a different proposition. 
The papers talk as if they might start war on us 
’most any time. And it wouldn’t surprise me if 
they gave us a mighty hard fight. There’s so 
many of them and then it’s their religion to want 
to die in battle. They figure that’s a sure one¬ 
way ticket to heaven.” 

Mrs. James R. Elkins gave her mate a glance of 

[233 



TOWN AND GOWN 

reproval for his hearty laugh. She took up the 
conversation: “Our church has always helped to 
keep a missionary in—no, it was Korea. He 
writes back such interesting letters about the con¬ 
ditions there.” 

“Why, we have one of the letters, don’t we, 
Mama?” asked Eileen. 

“No, dear, don’t you remember? I returned 
that to Mrs. Eldridge.” 

Thian Kit Lin did not drink his tea with his 
meal but took it just before his dessert in long 
silent sips. He finished only a third of his mince 
pie. 

After dinner he was seated by his host and 
hostesses in the parlor on a large, over-stuffed 
rocker of leather which nearly engulfed him. 
James R. Elkins was in the Windsor chair, the 
women on the leather divan. 

“Well, Hazel,” said James R. Elkins, beaming 
complacently upon his wife, “I wonder if Mr. 
Lin wouldn’t like to hear a little music.” 

James R. Elkins rose heavily, aided by his 
pudgy hands upon his knees, the large imitation 
ruby ring on one of his fingers gleaming dully 
under the pink-fringed shade of the floor lamp. 
He cranked the phonograph with little, well-fed 
grunts. 

Thian Kit Lin appeared fragile in the huge 
leather rocker as he listened attentively to “The 

234] 


BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS 

Sextette from Lucia,” and, on the other side of 
the disc record, “The Humoresque.” The next 
piece was a zestful medley in which negro dialogue 
was mingled with a song describing the delights 
of “sunny Tennessee.” 

“Fm so sorry,” said Mrs. James R. Elkins, “that 
we don’t have any Chinese music. We must look 

* 

for some, Eileen, the next time we get records.” 

“Yes, sir, wonderful thing to have in a home, 
a phonograph,” James R. Elkins mused. 

The conversation lagged for a moment, then 
Mrs. James R. Elkins excused herself and went 
to the dining room buffet to return carrying a 
knitting bag embroidered in beads with the bold 
design of a dragon. “Here’s a little thing I 
wanted to show you, Mr. Lin. Elinore—excuse 
me—Mrs. Travis—that’s my married daughter, 
you know—gave it to me. She got it up in the 
art department of Stearns’ one day—oh, yes, it 
was last October. Don’t you think that Chinese 
needle work is wonderful ?” 

“It is,” agreed Thian Kit Lin, “skillfully done.” 

“You can’t always tell though, sometimes,” 
James R. Elkins laughed long and heartily. “A 
lot of that stuff is made right up in Chicago in 
factories.” 

“But, Papa, any one can see that this is gen¬ 
uine !” Eileen Elkins was earnest. 

“Yes,” agreed Thian Kit Lin pacifically. 


[235 



TOWN AND GOWN 


There was another long silence. Eileen Elkins 
saved it this time: “What studies are you taking 
in the University, Mr. Lin?” 

Thian Kit Lin described his course in detail. 

Ill 

It was Christmas night and the wreath of holly 
pinned to the scrim curtains loomed black in the 
pink lamplight. The smoke from James R. 
Elkins’ cigar flowed smoothly in a thin stream 
toward the lamp. The steam from the radiators 
escaped with a comfortable hiss and the leather 
rockers were deep and soft. The cozy room made 
the blackness outside seem more black and com¬ 
fortless. James R. Elkins uncrossed his fat knees 
and rose with a politely luxurious grunt. His wife 
and daughter watched him as if a ceremony 
pended. 

“Mrs. Elkins and Eileen and I want you to 
take home a little souvenir of what has been a 
mighty pleasant evening to us, a mighty pleasant 
evening,” he said with kindly awkwardness. “It 
doesn’t amount to anything, but-” 

Thian Kit Lin rose. He stood very still and 
took from James R. Elkins a package tied with 
green ribbon embossed in miniature Christmas 
trees. His pointed fingers undid the wrapping 
and revealed a book bound in green morocco with 
236] 



BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS 

a title in gold and Old English, The Man Who 
Wins. 

“It’s by Alfred M. Reeves/' Eileen put in. 
“You read poetry, of course?" asked Mrs. 
James R. Elkins. “I am just sure you’ll like it. 
I’ve found them so inspiring, these little things 
of Reeves’.’’ 

Smiling his delicate smile Thian Kit Lin opened 
the book at the first gilt-edged page. 

“May I?’’ He looked up with a bird-like 
glance. 

“Oh, do read one of them aloud." 

His chant was slow and monotonous and 
Oriental: 

Have you ever paused and wondered 
In the grayness of the gloom— 

Have you ever sat and pondered 
While the gloaming sought your room? 

Have you ever faced yourself and said: 

“This life must have a key, 

The lock will turn for someone, 

And it must be me?” 

Have you ever cowered, dreaming, 

Of your past and future days, 

While the twilight glowered, gleaming, 
Starry-eyed through purple haze, 

And did inspiration whisper then 
Amid life's petty dins, 

“Here’s the secret: it’s the fellow 
With the smile that wins?” 

O, it isn’t to the heroes with their bold and shining swords; 
It isn’t to the golden-tongued who sway the list’ing hordes, 

to 7 


TOWN AND GOWN 

And it isn’t to the captains of the lashing, crashing seas, 
Nor the adamant adventurers who storm life’s frowning 
leas 

That the door of life is opened 
In this world of sighs and sins— 

It’s the fellow with the smile that wins! 

Silently, tenderly, the exotic fingers of Thian 
Kit Lin replaced the book in the case and caress¬ 
ingly tied the package with its holiday ribbon. In 
the touch of those fingers and in his smile there 
was a deference and appreciation that made his 
murmured words almost unnecessary. 

“I am deeply touched," said Thian Kit Lin. 

James R. Elkins' eyes were blue and kindly. 
Eileen Elkins' smile was thrilled. And over the 
features of Mrs. James R. Elkins there came a 
look that might have been translated: “There is 
no Christmas in China. (At least not in those 
parts of China where the missionaries have not 
yet penetrated.) There is no holly there, no 
poetry, no gifts." 

IV 

The front door had closed behind Thian Kit 
Lin. As he faced the night there was still in 
his ears the kindliness of the parting greetings. 
He hurried quietly down the front porch steps, 
the parcel under his arm. Once he looked back 
at the bay window with its pink reading lamp 
and holly wreath and fern, then went on in his 
steadfast walk. 

238] 


BETWEEN THE FOUR SEAS 

He stopped two blocks away, only for a mo¬ 
ment. His shining smile was gone. He was 
chanting in a whisper. ... It was from Li Po. 

“What is the use of talking! There is no end of talking— 
There is no end of things in the heart.” 

The dampness of the paved street was already 
crinkled by the cold, but in the gutter was a 
stream of muddy water from the snows of the 
last week. His smile again childlike and delicate, 
his face dimly yellow and black in the swaying 
light of a street lamp, Thian Kit Lin leaned over 
the curb and tenderly, gently, placed his present 
of the evening in the turbid waters of the gutter. 
He stood for a moment still smiling, as he watched 
it float away into the darkness. 


[239 


0 


Twelfth Episode: 

A BLIND DATE, COUSIN LOTTIE 
AND THE CAT 


From the Descriptive Booklet of the Uni¬ 
versity: “The various women's 

associations have for their object 
the promotion of solidarity among 
the women by uniting them for so¬ 
cial purposes and by providing for 
their needs in any possible way ” 


















XII: A Blind Date, Cousin 
Lottie and the Cat 


i 


HE piano stopped with an abrupt chord. 



Eleven girls flopped excitedly into eleven 


chairs. The twelfth girl who had seized 


on no chair was, by the rules of the game, “out”. 
She stood aloof and listened to the others cry, 

“Why, Ellen Pritchett! You didn’t try to get 
a chair! Now, honestly, did you?” 

Ellen Pritchett’s smile was cool and poised. She 
was thinking that the eleven were near-ugly and 
stupid. She was thinking that musical chair was 
silly. But there was nothing in her manner to 
indicate her thoughts. In obedience to the game 
she moved to the Christmas tree, chose a package 
from the branches, unwrapped it calmly and 
looked at it. It was a folding needle case made 
neatly of blue-flowered ribbon and tied with pink 
bows. 


“Oh, it’s sweet!” 
“Perfectly darling!” 


[243 


TOWN AND GOWN 


“Who made it?” 

“Awfully handy to slip into your pocket.” 

“Mend your stockings at gym with it.” 

Ellen Pritchett smiled and thanked the party 
as a whole. The donor was supposed to be un¬ 
known; but she had seen Iva Weirs making the 
needle case months ago. She had smiled then at 
Iva for taking such an eager interest in the Christ¬ 
mas party of Halcyon House as to prepare a gift 
so painstakingly soon. Only that afternoon Ellen 
Pritchett had bought a vanity box to put on the 
tree, paying seventy-five cents for it, indifferent 
to the rules of the house that no present must 
exceed a quarter. 

She put the needle case in a corner of the 
window sill. She hated “handy” things, especially 
if they were fashioned neatly from blue and pink 
flowered ribbon. Neither did she care to “mend 
her stockings at gym with it,” for when her 
stockings had holes she threw them away. She 
always kept three new pairs of silk stockings in 
her locker at the gymnasium for emergencies. 

She sat lazily in a mission rocker and listened 
to the eleven gurgle the ecstatics she designated 
“raving on”. The queer part, she thought, was 
that they should be sincerely enthusiastic. How 
could they be? It was her fourth Christmas at 
Halcyon House. Thank Heaven it was her last! 
Each December twenty-third (before the most of 
244] 


A BLIND DATE 

them left for Christmas vacation) she had bought 
a present and put it on the tree, receiving in 
return something another girl had bought and 
put on the tree. Each twenty-third of December 
she had played musical chair to determine in 
what order the packages were distributed. There 
had been talk at business meeting of doing it 
some other way, but in the end they played 
musical chair. She had known they would. 

At business meeting she sat quietly in the back¬ 
ground and listened to the grave discussions about 
“getting Rita McLaughlin interested again”; as 
to the flowers to be sent to Rev. Dunlevy who was 
ill—“bright red carnations to cheer him up, girls, 
don’t you think?”; about raising money with a 
little bazaar to buy new drapes; about whether 
the girls ought to dance with each other Sunday 
afternoons since Halcyon House was so closely 
connected with the Y. W. C. A.; and once there 
had been an ominous commentary by the presi¬ 
dent on the fact that Miss Ellen Pritchett had 
been seen smoking. “Something really nice girls 
don’t do. I suppose the man you were with in¬ 
fluenced you unduly, but don’t you think it would 
be more womanly to try and influence him not to 
smoke?” 

Where Ellen Pritchett came from they did not 
talk about being womanly. She and her sisters 
were concerned with being pretty and amusing 

[245 


TOWN AND GOWN 


men; in order to amuse men you had to smoke and 
drink and wear good clothes. In her Southern 
home there were jolly colored maids who kept her 
neat and by flattering remarks furthered her idea 
that her mission was to be charming and happily 
indolent. This northern State University had 
been recommended to her by a friend who had 
married extremely well. 

“My dear —the men! Thousands of men! 
Every girl up there has four and a half men, so 
to speak.” 

Ellen had persisted through nearly four years 
of it, studying household science negligently. To 
ambitious girls who had “aims”, she said she was 
going to teach household science, or home 
economics, as it was phrased still more euphemis¬ 
tically. But she intended to do nothing of the 
sort—not if she could find the right man. 

To her the four years had brought failure. She 
had started out all wrong by accepting the in¬ 
vitation of Halcyon House. She had had no in¬ 
fluential friends in the school. “No drag,” she 
told herself. The girl she had known who married 
well had not belonged to a sorority. Ellen had 
thought to improve on this girl’s career by join¬ 
ing something. The club had only proved a 
hindrance. It was impossible to live it down. At 
every turn she found herself labelled “one of 
those Halcyon girls” with slurring emphasis. 
246] 


A BLIND DATE 

She bolstered her pride by considering how 
pathetic the others of her house really were. She 
felt sorry for any girl who could actually enjoy 
herself without men. She kept analyzing them 
—trying to discover how they could gasp with 
pleasure over these Christmas gifts which came 
from each other. Her conviction was that no 
present should be gasped over unless a man had 
presented it. 

As she sat watching now, her observations 
flashed like shuttlecocks and her caustic criticism 
was a dangerous, feline-swift battledore: 

There they are, the dowdy lot of them, getting 
excited over an asinine game like musical chair; 
the peppy ones swaying back and forth with their 
arms about each other, talking loudly about such 
inane things as the lights on the tree, whether 
there will be enough snow for the big bob-sled 
party to-morrow night, and of the sweetness of 
the Dean of Women—they all admire Dean Agnes 
Watson so much! 

There is Lucretia Cook, plump and good- 
natured like a fat, familiar notebook in which ir¬ 
relevant jottings are scribbled. She never can co¬ 
ordinate her thoughts—tells jokes which have no 
bearing on the subject in hand, jokes that become 
really funny when colored by the deep purple of 
her laughter. Her laughter is like purple ink 
slobbering down a page. Even the crudeness of 

[247 


TOWN AND GOWN 


her humor, its occasional cunning salaciousness, 
cannot stamp her as anything but a nice girl. 
Yes, they are all nice girls! 

And Peggy Fry! She’s found it a tenacious 
struggle to make the girls call her Peggy. Wide¬ 
mouthed, raw-boned, with prominent teeth, she 
looks anything but Peggy. She has a talent for 
appearing dowdy in the best materials and the 
latest cuts. Failing in her ambition to be cute 
and chic, she had become one of the most in¬ 
defatigable workers in the First Presbyterian 
church. Suspicious of sorority girls, town girls, 
and pretty women instructors. 

Irene Schultz wears the flag of her patience 
in a tatted collar and cuff set of infinitesimal loop- 
ings. She worked on it for long months and now 
wears it with an air of meek pride. Usually 
silent, she gives the impression that she’s quietly 
criticizing, summing up, pigeonholing people.: 
Perhaps she is! Her conclusions can’t be inter¬ 
esting or they would lend some luster to her pale 
^yes. 

Elsie Brecht! She approaches prettiness so 
apologetically that it mocks her. Her large, noble 
brown eyes have the expression of a bossy cow. 
So tranquil she ought to chew a cud. . . . 

Ellen moistened her lovely lips with a catlike 
sensuality. At a party like this she derived no 
enjoyment until it was possible for her to sit 
248] 


A BLIND DATE 


apart and lap up her thoughts. At such a time 
she knew she appeared charming, bright-eyed and 
gracefully postured. Often the other girls paused 
to watch her, feeling her an ornament to their 
vanity, one little frivolous gem in the lusterless 
ring known as Halcyon. 

Even now she overheard Elsie saying to Irene, 
wistfully envious, “Where did she get that big 
shell comb? It makes her look Spanish—or— 
something.’’ 

If they bought combs Ellen would discard hers, 
snatch away the precedent and leave them with 
imitations they were too timid to wear. 

She regretted that the measure of her pride 
was on so small a scale. One’s pride varied ac¬ 
cording to one’s adversaries and these were small 
—very small. She longed to cross swords with 
girls formidable. Dot Ambrose, Patsy Perdue— 
there were girls with tall pride proportioned to 
their slashing subjection of the feminine populace. 
After all, jnen were only the gloves with which 
one slapped the faces of girls. It was women one 
duelled. She had known women to marry merely 
as a rapier thrust to a feminine enemy. 

II 

The girls began to sing Christmas carols. They 
opened their mouths very wide as they sang and 
their eyes roved about genially. Ellen did not mind 

[249 


TOWN AND GOWN 


the carols. They were rather nice if you could 
ignore Lucretia Cook’s robust alto and Peggy’s 
high squeaky accompaniment she called tenor; but 
when they began old hymns Ellen went up to her 
room. 

There she found Iva Weirs, her roommate, 
neatly copying lecture notes for heredity and evo¬ 
lution. 

Ellen kicked off her slippers—she was con¬ 
sistently untidy—dropped her high comb on the 
bookcase, stepped out of her black crepe dress and 
stood in her chemise, arms at her sides, gazing 
at the silk-shaded boudoir lamps on either side 
of the mirror. Yes, they were awfully nice, those 
orange and cream lace shades. And the room 
was nice, too. 

Her hobby was interior decorating. With 
orange and black enamel she had transformed 
a study table and two chairs into smooth, gleam¬ 
ing surfaces that invited the eye after the 
monotony of the dark brown wall and floor. The 
couch had the soft luxury of many pillows; at 
the oldfashioned, shuttered windows hung bright 
patterned orange and black cretonnes. On a little 
table her gray-shining pewter tea service, her 
copper chafing dish; and in a low, dull green bowl, 
a family of narcissus lifting white, fragrant faces. 

“The only decent room in the house,” she said. 

“What?” Iva looked up, stared anxiously at 

250] 


A BLIND DATE 


Ellen's lavender chemise, then at the window. 
"‘Hadn’t you better pull down the blinds? . . . 
Wait, I will.” She put down her notes and 
lowered the shades, peering with near-sighted 
eyes through her round, bone-rimmed glasses. 

“Gosh,” remarked Ellen, softly, “gosh.” She 
was musing on Iva’s conviction that people would 
deviate on their way back from the Orpheum this 
cold winter night to station themselves under a 
back, third floor window and ogle an ordinary 
lavender chemise. “My knees would sure be 
worth it,” she said, impudently, looking down with 
satisfaction at the dimpled roundnesses above her 
rolled stockings. She pulled out a box of violet 
scented cigarettes from the little table and lit one. 

Iva looked up again, staring still more anx¬ 
iously, although she essayed no remonstrance. 
Neither would she dare speak to the other girls. 

The room glimmered black and orange through 
a delicate haze of smoke. Yes, it was awfully 
nice—except for Iva humping awkwardly over the 
table. The two sharp points of her shoulders 
reared themselves abjectly under her sheer 
georgette waist. A mode, thought Ellen, that she 
persists in wearing, like all thin girls. 

Ellen intended to bring Jimmy Tradinick up 
to this room to-morrow night. The other girls 
were going on a bob-sled party. Miss Spink, 
the house chaperon, would be with them. Already 

[ 2 Si 


TOWN AND GOWN 


Ellen had told Jimmy to arrange a blind date for 
Iva Weirs—Iva, the skinny and bespectacled— 
Iva, who would not even go on a bob-sled party, 
who never went out with men! 

“Just think, Iva,” said Ellen in the companion¬ 
able tone that never failed to delude her room¬ 
mate, “just think—we’re seniors! We’re nearly 
through! The old classes, the old library, old 
Sterling Hall! We’ll never see them again! We’ll 
be gone!” 

Moisture always came to Iva’s near-sighted 
eyes when she heard the word “old” prefixed many 
times to names of campus buildings and spoken 
with that hidden sob Ellen was putting into her 
voice now. The hint of any regret, the thought 
of leaving anything or anybody brought her sad 
tremors and facile tears. 

She was what Ellen called “an emotional slop.” 

Iva’s eyes grew moist at movies about old 
homesteads and young mothers; at renditions of 
“Jes’ A-wearyin’ For You” and “Your Eyes”; 
but she read “Dover Beach” without blinking and 
made scholarly reports to her English instructor 
on Arnold’s use of vowel sounds. 

After leaving college she would subscribe to 
the alumni magazine, out of what she earned 
teaching Psychology she would pay to read that 
Walter Branty and Myra Hichens Branty, who 
had been in one of her classes, were now the 

252] 


A BLIND DATE 

parents of a seven-pound man child. She would 
spend still more time and money to “come, back”; 
to watch other people’s commencement exercises, 
and thrill vicariously at the sight of caps and 
gowns; to stand on the campus where large 
numerals marked the reunion of her class, 
and wonder pathetically why none of her acquaint¬ 
ances had thought to stand there too; to attend 
old grad luncheons at which nobody knew her, 
meekly eating the familiar chicken-in-patties and 
creamed peas for which she paid $1.25; to sit 
in the auditorium listening to a renowned pig-iron 
manufacturer from Pittsburgh describe the ad¬ 
vantages of a college education, and when he was 
successfully through to rise and sing four stanzas 
of “Thy Sons Return Dear Alma Mater, Loyally 
to Thee”. . . . 

“The dear old paths!” said Ellen in a mel¬ 
ancholy voice, “the old bench by the acacia tree! 
The moon rising over dear old Halcyon House! 
The Christmas tree to-night—our last.” 

From below came the sound of many female 
voices wailing hymns. 

“Don’t,” said Iva, weakly. She stopped mak¬ 
ing a diagram to show the transmission of evil 
characters in the deplorable Jukes family. Her 
head drooped gloomily into her hands. 

“Don’t you have any regrets, Iva, now that it’s 

[ 2 53 


TOWN AND GOWN 

over? Don’t you often wish you’d stepped out 
more?” 

“Stepped out?” 

“Yeh, with men. You’ve only one more se¬ 
mester, Iva. Just one more chance to be young 
and gay. To play, you know. I read somewhere 
that we live by four things: work, love, play, 
worship. Say, Iva, don’t you ever think you’ve 
sorta neglected the play element?” Ellen sat on 
the bed and smoked meditatively. 

“Ye-es, maybe I have. But—Ellen—I’ve never 
really had a chance.” Iva was very honest. Her 
eyes looked wistful through their round glasses. 

Ellen was suddenly sorry for her. She was 
tremendously glad she had talked to Jimmy Trad- 
inick about the blind date. “Get her a nice boy,” 
she had said. “Somebody that says 'pardon me’ 
a lot, one of those clean-cut young Americans— 
you know. Somebody that dances the two-step, 
uses your last name, goes to class parties and eats 
at the Y. M. C. A. cafeteria.” Ellen was pleased 
with herself, now, for her altruism. 

“Listen, Iva, I know how it is. You pull down 
such darn good grades—Phi Beta Kappa in your 
junior year—and all that. But I got to thinking 
and I decided you ought to step out. So—don’t 
get scared, honey,—I got you a date.” 

Iva had started to trace the Jukes’ disgraceful 
paths once more, through matricide, arson and 

254] 


A BLIND DATE 


rape, but now her pen made a blot where she had 
meant to put great-great grandfather Jukes. 
“You got me a date?” she said. Then—“You got 

me a date? Who with-?” (It amused Ellen 

to find Iva dropping into the vernacular.) 

“Oh, with a peach of a fellow,” said Ellen, 
growing highly imaginative. “He belongs to the 
Y. M. C. A. I think he’s the vice-president or 
maybe the secretary—anyway, he is perfectly 
grand and awfully good looking. He saw you at 
Epworth League last Sunday. . . . He asked 
Jimmy Tradinick to ask me to introduce him.” 

Iva carefully blotted the place where she had 
meant to put great-great grandfather Jukes. But 
she did not draw the little circle that was sup¬ 
posed to be he. She remained transfixed, blotter 
in hand. Her face was very red. 

“What’s—what’s his name?” she asked. 

Ellen saw that more data was required. “Just 
a minute,” she said. Slipping into a dressing 
gown she went down to the second floor telephone. 
She returned triumphantly from her conversation 
with Jimmy. “I know you’ll like him, Iva— 
though I can’t hand blind dates much as a rule. 
His name is Bertram Hall and he plays the cor¬ 
net in the first band and he lives at the Ag Club. 
He’s coming to take you to a banquet his Sun¬ 
day School class is giving. And you can wear 

[255 



TOWN AND GOWN 

my fur coat if you want to and your silk dress 
will look slick if you press it.” 

“Oh, I don’t think I’d better,” said Iva, 
nervously. 

“Better what?” 

“Better go. I have all my notes to copy-” 

Iva looked ruefully at the Jukes’ arrested path¬ 
way. 

“Rot! Do it to-morrow. ’Sides, he’s coming 
and you’d have to call him up at the Ag Club and 
sling the devil of a line to get out of it now. . . . 
Do come on to bed—I’m ungodly sleepy.” 

In her pajamas, Ellen looked a guileless child. 
She lay in the dark at last, thinking about Jimmy 
Tradinick (accent on the “din,” he was careful 
to insist): he was dissolute, not the marrying kind, 
a lounge lizard, a politician. Lank, suave, he 
smiled at everything and everybody. His cynical 
humor refused to let you believe in your best 
friend. He thought the university, his fraternity 
brothers, his relatives and most women inexpress¬ 
ibly stupid. He called prominent men like Pewter 
Hughes and Andy Protheroe asses and jellybeans. 
He had travelled, he had money, he was bored. 
He often wondered why he had committed the 
supreme idiocy of coming here to college. 

He knew Ellen hated the smug sound of “Hal¬ 
cyon House” and he continually annoyed her with 
the subject. “Don’t worry,” he had said. “If I 

256] • 



A BLIND DATE 


tell anyone Fm going to see a girl at Halcyon 
House they immediately conclude its an immoral 
place.” He piqued her by looking amused at 
the mission chairs and slippery leather couch in 
the living room. She wanted him to see her 
room—to know that she was accustomed to differ¬ 
ent surroundings. He would find her a different 
Ellen—up there. . . . "That darn parlor— 

cramps my style-” she thought as she went 

to sleep. 

The next afternoon she met Jimmy downtown 
for a matinee at the Orpheum. After the Orph 
they went to the Pearson Hotel for dinner. ( The 
dining room of the Pearson Hotel was frequented 
by the more affluent students.) In the pale blue 
and gold dining room she nodded to several ac¬ 
quaintances , brightly, proudly. . . . By this time 
the Halcyon House girls had all ridden noisily 
away in the ridiculous bob-sled. In half an hour, 
Iva, who had sternly copied notes all day, would 
be stepping forth with the unimpeachable Mr. 
Hall to a Sunday School banquet. 

It would not be long until Ellen sat with 
Jimmy Tradinick in the orange-tinted cosiness of 
her room—Jimmy Tradinick who had laughed at 
her for being "conventional”. . . . "If you had 
just the necessary touch of madness about you 
I might fall in love,” he had said carelessly. They 
would make cocktails and they would smoke; they 

[257 



TOWN AND GOWN 


would see each other alone, at last, in a setting 
charming and intimate- 


III 

“Ready?” 

He was handing a bill to the waiter. . . . She 
was enveloped in her loose semi-evening cloak 
of deep blue velvet and pale lemon-colored fur. 
She wore a new spring hat—a poke bonnet with 
a silver facing and a curious feather trailing care¬ 
less fronds. 

In honor of this hat Jimmy hailed a taxicab. 
It was a very wobbly cab but a cab nevertheless. 
She thought pleasurably that she had been in 
almost all of the cabs that ever stopped at Hal¬ 
cyon House. 

... Now they were in the darkness of the hall, 
brushing the snow from each other. Jimmy Trad- 
inick, nonchalant and tacitly amused, lit a cig¬ 
arette and waited. 

‘Til have to see,” she said, and her breath 
caught a little. “I’ll go up and see if-” 

“Kiss Jimmy ’bye, naughty little sweetheart,” 
was all he said. She obediently stood on tiptoe to 
kiss him and for a moment there was only dark¬ 
ness and heartbeats and whispers. 

At last she sped up to her room. 

A light! . . . Iva Weirs sitting there, sewing. 

258] 




A BLIND DATE 

Iva Weirs in her old gray bathrobe, patiently 
stitching a blue-flowered needle case. 

“Why—you—why—didn’t you go? Didn’t he 
come?” 

.“I called him up and explained like you said,” 
answered Iva placidly. 

“But why ? Why ?” 

“Because of Cousin Lottie.” 

“Is she dead?” asked Ellen. She hoped Cousin 
Lottie was at least dead. 

“Oh, no! Not dead. But you see I remem¬ 
bered I hadn’t made her a Christmas present. 
Nothing! Not a thing! And I remembered mama 
hadn’t either. She lives way out in California, 
you know, and you can’t depend on the mails the 
last thing, of course. It was just terribly for¬ 
getful of me! So I’m making her one of those 
pretty little needle cases like I made you. If I 
dress and go out to mail it to-night, it’ll go first 
thing in the morning, won’t it?” she appealed 
anxiously. 

“Yes,” said Ellen, “I suppose it will.” 

She looked at the little teatable—its shining 
glasses, its copper kettle, the unopened cigarettes, 
the narcissus flowers—with quickly winking eyes. 

“And you don’t know,” continued Iva with a 
plaintive, virtuous air, “How very much I wished 
to meet Mr. Hall. I have a second cousin named 

[259 



TOWN AND GOWN 

Hall out in Davenport, Iowa, and I wanted to 
ask-” 

But Ellen had disappeared. 

Jimmy Tradinick sat for half an hour in the 
reception parlor of Halcyon House. Jimmy was 
sensitive to atmosphere. He began to feel numb 
—the couch was very hard. ... It was snowing 
outside. Inside there was no grate fire and the 
photographs of innumerable Halcyon alumnse 
glared at him inimicably. Yawning, he made his 
excuses and walked over to the nearest billiard 
hall for a game of pool. 


260] 



Thirteenth Episode: 

WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 


From the Descriptive Booklet of the Uni¬ 
versity: “Most of the national 

social fraternities have chapters at 
the University 


% 


XIII: When Greek 
Meets Barb 


i 

T HE State University was giving a re¬ 
ception on the last evening of registra¬ 
tion. Placards announced the fact on the 
bulletin boards of every hall of the campus. In 
addition, Andrews had received a mimeographed 
invitation, mailed to him at the rooming house 
that had been his home for nearly a week. 

Both Andrews and Larsen, his roommate, were 
going. Nor was their zeal in dressing for the 
occasion quelled when the sophomore in the room 
across the hall spurned the subject with the com¬ 
ment: “Same old stuff! Mr. and Mrs. Prexy 
always do that every year.” 

It was the rushing season when the Greek letter 
organizations were competing with each other 
to choose out of the thousand and a half incoming 
freshmen those few hundred who would do most 
honor to their pin in the way of fussing, athletics, 
politics and spending. So was Fraternity Row a 
blurb of lights and laughter as Andrews and Lar- 

[263 


TOWN AND GOWN 

sen went past on the way to the campus. Dizzy¬ 
ing cars roared by on the uneven pavement. 
Grouped forms were on the broad brick porches, 
talking and arguing vehemently. From across the 
street there came shrillness and clatter of feminine 
heels—the sororities were rushing, too. 

Andrews looked on eagerly. He felt suddenly 
taut with hope. Far back in his high school days 
of the year before, he had seen fraternity life in 
the picture offered by a score of University cat¬ 
alogues and descriptive booklets; the comradeship, 
the dancing and dates, the prestige. To be able 
to wear with the proper nonchalance that tiny 
jeweled pin! To write letters home on the rich, 
cream-colored stationery embossed with Greek 
letters that would mystify the entire twelve hun¬ 
dred inhabitants of Newona! To speak languidly 
of “my fraternity brothers!” 

There were these obstacles, of course: An¬ 
drews had little more than enough money for his 
actual expenses. He had not that entree of ac¬ 
quaintance with someone from his high school 
who was already wearing a pin. He had neither 
athletic nor social importance. 

But Andrews had been, well, if he did say so 
himself, about as popular a man as there was 
in his high school; the only one, in fact, who had 
ever gone steady with Esther Buckendahl. 

There was, however, another drawback—Lar- 
264] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 

sen. Larsen was impossible. Andrews had 
shared the room with him because he knew no one 
else and because Larsen, whom he had met dur¬ 
ing registration, was also unable to afford a room 
alone. But Larsen—his humble, doglike eyes, 
his two hundred pounds of very blonde awkward¬ 
ness, his lumpy speech—yes, Larsen was out of 
the question as soon as he could find another 
roommate. 

Andrews was slender enough to wear to advan¬ 
tage the slim, straight-line clothes advertised in 
full pages of the magazines; his hair, parted 
cleanly in the middle and brushed straight back, 
added no jarring note to his sharp, dapper 
features; he was suave; he had always “got over.” 

The two of them, with Larsen a step to the 
rear, arrived at the large reception hall on the 
second floor of the Library Building a bit early. 
There were, however, literally hundreds—for the 
most part very obviously freshmen—already there, 
standing about in awkward groups or examining 
the statuary with forced interest. The great room 
was nervously alive with all pitches of conversa¬ 
tion. 

A committee of juniors and seniors, impatient 
to get to their fraternity dances, met the two 
at the door. Without warning, a sleek youth with 
a tiny moustache was shaking Andrews’ hand. 

“Glad to see you, old man. Protheroe’s my 

[265 


TOWN AND GOWN 

name. Very glad to know you, I’m sure. Here, 
just let me tie this card to your button. Thanks. 
Yes, write your name on it. Here’s a pencil. 
Sure, such a mob here, you know, good chance to 
get acquainted. First year man, aren’t you? So 
long, old man. See you again. Thanks.” 

Andrews was irritated with himself for having 
been a bit awed and awkward. He envied Pro- 
theroe both his line of talk and the pin on his 
vest. And he wished that Larsen wouldn’t keep 
at his heels so doggedly and so wide-eyed with 
confusion. 

The group toward which they had been moving 
suddenly engulfed them. Introductions came at 
them blindingly. Every one was reading the name 
on every one else’s card. 

“Mr. Andrews? Spelton’s my name. Kind of 
badly written on the card, I guess. From Co¬ 
lumbia. Where from—Newona, did you say? 
No, don’t know anybody there. Well—very glad 
to have met you, Mr. Andrews. Hope to see you 
again some time. Thanks, same to you.” 

“Glad to know you, I’m sure, Mr. Andrews. 
Thanks. Sure a crowd, isn’t it ? I’m glad to have 
met you, too. See you again.” 

It was breathless, giddy. Within a few min¬ 
utes Andrews had met a dozen freshmen, none 
of whom knew each other and each of whom went 
on and on almost helplessly, reading the names 
266] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 

on the cards tied to each person’s button and going 
through the same formula of introduction. Once, 
Andrews stopped to talk to a girl to whom he 
had introduced himself, but the conversation was 
broken up so many times by proffered introduc¬ 
tions that he gave it up. And then- 

“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Andrews? Thank 
you. Quite fascinating, isn’t it? Now please do 
make yourself at home, as Father used to say at 
Sunday dinner; just introduce yourself all around. 
Yes, splendid chance to meet everybody. Thanks, 
awfully.’’ 

She was gone, leaving Andrews almost too 
dazed to acknowledge properly the blurted intro¬ 
duction of a huge, gangling freshman. She was 
his ideal of the co-ed, a new sort of languid, 
sophisticated girl; hair brushed back severely 
from a straight part, a plain black gown unembel¬ 
lished by anything but a jewelled sorority pin 
and a card proclaiming that she was one of the 
Freshmen Entertainment Committee. The 
scrawled name on the card was “D. Ambrose.” 

Nothing coquettish, kittenish about her; she 
was all straightforward, nonchalantly bold, un¬ 
caring, sophisticated. She was of another world, 
the world to which he aspired, the world of pledge 
buttons, of slow, grotesque dances under parch¬ 
ment-shaded lamps, of easy, bored conversation, 
of knowing kisses. Andrews resolved to date up 

[267 



TOWN AND GOWN 


with D. Ambrose. He had seen none to compare 
with her on the campus. But he wished that she 
hadn't noticed and introduced herself to Larsen, 
who was still—pluckily—at his heels. Oh, well, 
some day he, with an acquired sophistication that 
would match hers, might joke with her about the 
whole thing. 

There was another hour of introductions and 
then a youth with a megaphone—the one who had 
met Andrews at the door—shouted dexterously 
for silence. The crowd faced the platform. The 
chairman announced that President and Mrs. 
McLaren were, unfortunately, in Europe at the 
time. He had, however, received a cablegram 
from them that was a message of welcome to the 
splendid body of young people who would make 
up the freshman class of the year and who would 
be the sophomores and juniors and seniors of the 
future. With their permission he would read the 
cablegram. After which, he wished to introduce 
Executive Dean Abrams, who had a few words 
to say. 

Andrews was mildly interested in the appear¬ 
ance of the executive dean. He had read an article 
in a popular magazine of the summer before, 
which had captioned Dean Abrams as “the Big 
Brother of the State University." 

After the orchestra played “Thy Sons Return, 
Dear Alma Mater," there were the wafers and 
268] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 

punch, but Andrews was ready to go back to his 
room. He had met D. Ambrose and that was 
enough. He saw clearly now that the rest of 
the reception deserved all the disdain the sopho¬ 
more had put into his comment earlier in the 
evening. It was merely for freshmen and barbs 
and hicks. 

He dodged several more introductions and 
sauntered out of the door congratulating himself 
upon his first escape that evening from Larsen. 
But when he reached the street off the campus and 
was well into Fraternity Row a wave of longing 
amounting to a sudden tightness of the throat 
came over him and threatened to overwhelm his 
new nonchalance. He could see under the half- 
drawn shades in the houses on every side the 
activity of the world to which he aspired—that 
blase, correct laughter; the dancing of just the 
proper grotesqueness; the sarcastic gayety; the 
whispering couples in the shadows of the big, 
opulent porches. And he was out of it all. He 
was a damned barb. 


II 

By the end of his freshman year Andrews was 
still a barb. He was still rooming with Larsen, 
who donned an apron for three hours a day in 
an uptown restaurant frequented by clerks and 
street car employes, and embarrassedly bawled 

[269 


TOWN AND GOWN 


short orders through a tile-framed window to 
earn his meals. Andrews did not work. He had 
found that the monthly check he received from 
home was enough to cover his expenses neatly and 
allow him an occasional date. 

It was all a matter of acquaintance, he told 
himself. He had known no one of importance 
when he entered the university. It was different 
now. 

For he had seen during the year the claiming 
by fraternities of five out of the sixteen men in 
the rooming house at which he and Larsen stayed. 
There was Cub Rogers, a perfect ass, of course; 
but then his father owned sixteen hundred acres 
of good corn land down in Allen County. And 
Meerbaum . . . well, Meerbaum was a pretty 
good fusser. Had a little money, too. But— 
Sydell? Why Sydell ? 

One by one they left the rooming house, later 
to reappear occasionally for short chats (super¬ 
ciliously wearing their pledge buttons). But all 
of them would be sophomores in their fraternities 
next fall- 

Andrews made sure that he kept up his ac¬ 
quaintance with them. 

The hulking Larsen was almost speechless in 
the presence of his dapper roommate. The more 
Andrews bullied him the more he seemed to 
reverence Andrews. 

270] 



WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 

“Swede, you’re a greasy grind,” Andrews 
would tell him pityingly. “Why don’t you shake 
a leg once in a .while?” 

“Ye-es,” Larsen would ponder it, his blue eyes 
wide with admiration. “Well—maybe I will.” 

But he never did. He stayed up in the room 
and studied on the evenings when Andrews went 
out on dates with the girls from the next door 
rooming house. 

Andrews somehow liked the big fellow. But 
Larsen was “impossible” and there was no dodg¬ 
ing that fact. 


Ill 

A good fraternity and passing grades were only 
two of Andrews’ objectives in the State Uni¬ 
versity. A date with Dot Ambrose, the “D. Am¬ 
brose” of the freshman reception, was the third 
objective. He felt, however, that this date, like 
the fraternity pledge, must be postponed until his 
sophomore year. 

What chance had a mere barb freshman with 
the one and only Dot Ambrose? Dot Ambrose, 
the blase and immaculately careless and gliding, 
who had been in the State University nobody knew 
how many semesters and who, through conditions 
and failures in her subjects, would be there no¬ 
body knew how many more semesters! She who 
successfully staked her femininity against all the 

[271 


TOWN AND GOWN 

traditions and regulations of the University, 
always technically virtuous and always shocking. 

Andrews had met her again during the second 
mid-semester examinations! Dot Ambrose was 
taking freshman rhetoric over for the—how many 
times was it ? She had been assigned to Andrews' 
section for the test. 

He had no hope, when she took the chair be¬ 
side him, that she would recognize him from the 
freshman reception. Not Dot Ambrose! He 
hoped, indeed, that she wouldn't. 

Dot smiled her weary smile. She waited 
languidly until the instructor had turned to the 
blackboard, then whispered to Andrews: 

“My God! I mustn't flunk this Rhet again. 
Lend a hand, won’t you?” 

At the end of the examination her answers, al¬ 
though differing in diction, were just as correct 
as Andrews'. He admired the cool, practiced way 
in which she copied them. In comparison to her 
the others of the class whom he saw cribbing were 
timid and erring dilettanti. 

“Thanks, awfully,” she whispered to him at the 
end of the examination. “I do hope you were 
right or I may have to take Rhet One all over 
again.” 

Both papers received an “A.” But Andrews 
realized that helping Dot Ambrose to crib in ex¬ 
aminations was not a stepping stone to a date with 
272] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 

her. He must have the significance of a fraternity 
pin. 

IV 

He came back for his sophomore year with 
definite hopes. During the summer he had by 
chance met Cub Rogers, who had roomed at the 
house with him before pledging Alph. 

“I want to have you up to the house for din¬ 
ner some night after we all get back/’ the Cub 
had said carelessly as they parted. 

And Andrews had convinced his parents that 
his increased expenses as a sophomore would de¬ 
mand a larger monthly check. He would have 
enough now to take care of the situation nicely. 
His wardrobe, too, upon which he had spent his 
summer’s earnings, was the best that he had ever 
owned. He had decided positively that he would 
room no more with Larsen. 

Such preparations and anticipations contrib¬ 
uted all the more to Andrews’ inward bitterness 
when rushing week passed without his having 
been approached by even the most minor of fra¬ 
ternities. The situation not only embittered but 
also puzzled him. Even in his most retrospective 
and searching moments he knew that he was a 
more logical prospect for a brotherhood than 
many of the freshmen he had seen with pledge 
buttons. 


[273 


TOWN AND GOWN 


“Why don’t some one with political ability or¬ 
ganize the big majority?” he sometimes asked 
himself. Yes, the big majority, out of every¬ 
thing, and allowed only that which the organized 
minority saw fit to allow! But some fraternity 
would have taken in that genius of organization 
long before he became that dangerous—and the 
genius would have accepted. For in his own mind 
every barb was potentially a Greek. 

It was: “What is he?” “Oh, he’s a Deke” 

Or: “How does he rate?” “Why, don’t you 
know? He’s a Phi Gam.” 

That was it everywhere you went, in or out 
of the University. If you couldn’t answer in 
Greek you were nobody. Your name was mud. 

He hated the fraternities. He disliked the 
barbs as a class even worse. For he could but 
agree that the brotherhoods had on the whole 
chosen well. They had taken the most and the 
best of the spenders, the athletes, the politicians 
and the fussers. They had taught them to use 
a salad fork and wear a Tuxedo. The barbs 
were a sorry lot. They meekly took what was 
left them and patiently waited their turn for 
more. Most of them were as smug and as snob¬ 
bish as the Greeks and were not nearly so grace¬ 
ful about it. 

But why had he been left out of everything? 


274] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 


v 

By the time Andrews was a junior he was re¬ 
signed to a non-fraternity social life. For it was 
almost too late in his University life for a re¬ 
quest to come from one of the better fraternities. 

It was true, of course, that he had been ap¬ 
proached once by one of the very minor locals. 
Andrews himself put an end to the negotiations. 
For he had seen even the bulky Larsen, his former 
roommate, decorated with the pledge button of 
one of the most national of national brotherhoods. 

Some coach had eyed the tremendous Larsen 
one day and had wondered as to his athletic pos¬ 
sibilities. He had tried him out in the weight 
events and had almost gasped to watch him pick 
up the hammer as if it were a marble, whirl it 
about his great blonde head with clumsy ease and 
hurl it a distance that was absolutely impossible. 
From that moment Larsen was a prize. The 
coach dug up a track suit appropriate to his Vi¬ 
king limbs and had him out at practice every day. 
Larsen was to break all of the conference records 
before .he was through. 

He was “rushed” almost immediately by two 
fraternities and in his embarrassment at the con¬ 
fusing arguments he promised both of them. A‘ 
volcanic dispute between the two houses ensued 
before Larsen’s blue serge suit was finally en- 

[275 


TOWN AND GOWN 


hanced by the proper pledge button. His brothers 
gave him a rough course of tutoring in table 
manners and dancing and then launched him into 
society. 

The result was violent and unexpected. Dot 
Ambrose, avowedly “sick of slickers and parlor 
snakes,” took up Larsen almost vehemently. For 
a month the two were seen at dances or at the 
Orph together while the University marvelled at 
her patience with his massive dancing and con¬ 
tinual expression of anxiety. As suddenly as she 
had first cultivated Larsen, Dot dropped him to 
take up with one of the young radicals. 

Andrews met Larsen on the way to a class one 
day. Larsen was positively grateful to see him, 
as he had been ever since they had left off room¬ 
ing together. He almost crushed Andrews’ hand. 

“I just thought of it last night!” he blurted 
with heavy candor. “You are not in a fraternity. 
That seems damn funny. I want to get you in 
mine.” 

Andrews snarled, suddenly twisted and im¬ 
potent and ratlike in rage. “You big bastard! 
Shut up and forget it.” 

He turned and left Larsen motionless, gaping. 

VI 

During his last two years at the State Univer¬ 
sity Andrews studied harder than ever. He even 

276] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 


wondered sometimes if he were not reputed to be 
a grind. 

“Well, wait till they get out and up against 
the real thing,” he consoled himself almost venge- 
fully. “They can’t always get by on drag and 
papa’s money.” 

He read even more faithfully than ever the ar¬ 
ticles in his favorite magazine—“How I Sold 
My Hardest Prospect”—“The Life Story Of A 
Crippled Youth Who Became A Millionaire Re¬ 
tailer”—“Success Isn’t A Matter Of Chance, 
Says Hardwick.” 

When he went to the Orph on Saturday even¬ 
ings it was as often with one or two of the men 
of the rooming house as with a girl. He danced 
seldom. His studies had become his greatest am¬ 
bition and he even made no secret of the high 
grades he received. 

He knew now that there were other good men 
in the University who had been passed up by the 
fraternities and who had become prominent senior 
barbs. For example, F. Blair Golden, editor of 
the student daily newspaper. No, a fraternity 
wasn’t everything. It was study that counted. 

The fraternity ambition was easier to relin¬ 
quish than the hope of a date with Dot Ambrose. 
In the room it was not hard to tell himself that 
she was a faker, a university vamp and a know- 
nothing; but if by chance he met her on the cam- 

[277 


TOWN AND GOWN 


pus, her bold eyes, her husky voice and striking 1 
gowns always brought back to him like homesick¬ 
ness the memory of that freshman reception and 
his resolution then that he would some time rush 
her. 

Once he did ask her for a date. He had been 
introduced to her during practice for amateur 
theatricals. She had acknowledged the introduc¬ 
tion as if she had never seen him before. 

“Remember that freshman rhet exam?” he 
asked almost bluntly, for her oversight irritated 
him. 

“Can’t say I do,” she drawled in her straight¬ 
forward, supercilious way. “I’ve flunked so 
many examinations around here that I’ve forgot¬ 
ten half of them—” 

“Say, Dot, when were you ever a freshman?” 
another girl put in. (There was no doubt of it; 
Dot was losing supremacy.) 

Later, when Andrews asked her for a date, 
she grew suddenly confidential. 

“Awfully sorry, but you know, I just can’t do 
it.” She raised her cool white hand to exhibit 
a diamond ring set in platinum. “I’m engaged 
again. Graduating this spring, you know. Chi¬ 
cago man and he’s awfully jealous about such 
things.” 

Andrews was inwardly furious and could 
hardly conceal it as he turned away with a “Sure, 
278] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 

I see/’ and what he hoped would pass as an under¬ 
standing smile. He knew that Dot Ambrose, en¬ 
gagement ring and all, would be seen at a dance 
with a fraternity man that evening. 

It gave him no little pleasure to learn that Lar¬ 
sen, holder of the conference hammer throw rec¬ 
ord, would not be able to graduate with him in the 
spring. Larsen had become so bewildered with 
his social and athletic triumphs that he had 
flunked several of his senior subjects and would 
have to put in another semester to get his degree 
from the College of Agriculture. 


VII 

By Commencement time all except the seniors 
and a few of the post graduates had gone home., 
The summer session had not yet begun and the 
campus was sad in its desertion. The June sun¬ 
light, gay with hope, seemed cruel in shining on 
the silent streets and brooding trees and the cam¬ 
pus buildings so indifferent to each other in color, 
age and architecture. 

Andrews paid no attention to Class Day. It 
wasn’t compulsory. Few cared about hearing the 
nervous class poet and seeing the always unknown 
valedictorian. Andrews put in several hours 
waiting in line to rent the cap and gown that he 

[279 


TOWN AND GOWN 

had ordered weeks before from a campus clothing 
store. 

The next two days of Commencement included 
the president’s reception to the seniors, the band 
concert and the senior ball. He went to none of 
them. Instead, he wrote some letters to Chi¬ 
cago firms in answer to the want-ads of positions 
in the Sunday newspaper and, when he found 
time monotonous up in the room, went to matinees 
at the Orph. He was worried everywhere by the 
vague feeling that he had forgotten something, 
only to remember with a start that it was his 
classes and studies that he was missing. 

On the morning of Commencement Day he 
tried on for the first time his cap and gown, smil¬ 
ing sardonically at his appearance in the mirror. 
He sat down on the edge of the brass bed and 
smoked a cigarette as he waited for ten o’clock to 
come. 

His classmates were already on the campus. 
The khaki-clad officers of military drill were lin¬ 
ing them up in the order of march. Andrews, as 
an honor student, was placed near the head of the 
column in the Engineering group. He knew none 
of the men about him. 

After an interminable period of waiting— 
the caps and gowns were uncomfortably warm in 
the June sun—the march to the auditorium 
started.; Out in the street a teamster was gaping 
280] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 

—at him, Andrews thought. Two or three small 
boys stopped excitedly on the sidewalk to watch. 
Everyone was out of step. 

After some confusion the seniors were seated 
in the first rows of seats in the auditorium. The 
rest of the huge hall was packed with tired, hot 
mothers and fathers—the dentists and merchants 
and druggists and wives of the sweltering little 
prairie towns. 

President McLaren spoke a few terse words 
which were almost inaudible in competition with 
the hum of fans. It was the first time that An¬ 
drews had ever seen him. Rather an antiquated 
and insignificant little man, he concluded. He 
listened for a time and then grew interested in 
watching the deans and professors seated at the 
back of the stage and attired in the robes of their 
degree. 

The giving out of the diplomas began. One by 
one the seniors filed across the stage to receive 
from the president their tightly rolled sheepskin 
diplomas tied with ribbon in the University colors. 
Andrews knew but few of them. As they ap¬ 
peared, crossed the stage, stopped, bowed to the 
president and took their diplomas, there was clap¬ 
ping from parents and friends far back in the 
auditorium. Sometimes this applause was proud 
in volume and length and lasted until the figure in 
cap and gown had merged again into his group. 


TOWN AND GOWN 

Several unknowns took their diplomas amid a 
dead silence that seemed even louder than the 
clapping had been. 

In the case of Dot Ambrose the applause was 
quite marked and Andrews even thought that he 
detected in it a note of irony. He watched her 
curiously until she took her seat again. 

He grew nervous as his own turn came near. 
How many would applaud him ? 

The man at his right was on the way. An¬ 
drews was next. He nervously arranged the tas¬ 
sel of his cap and the skirts of the gown. He 
must not trip on the steps. 

The wings leading to the stage were dark and 
a stage hand stared stupidly at him as he came up 
the short flight of stairs. Andrews moistened his 
lips and stepped out before the State University. 

The weary smile of the president, the taking of 
the diploma in his damp hand, the bow, the cross¬ 
ing to the other side ... it was all vague to 
Andrews. But—they had clapped! He had not 
thought that so many of them would. He had 
feared a ghastly silence. Sudden moisture hurt 
his eyelids and he clenched his fists in savage im¬ 
patience. 

He tried to walk nonchalantly back to his seat. 
It was over—the four years of it. 

There were two more hours of the exercises. 
These last—and often only—appearances of the 
282] 


WHEN GREEK MEETS BARB 


seniors before their University were becoming 
monotonous. The clapping grew in listlessness, 
for it was nearly two o'clock and it was hot. An¬ 
drews shifted about miserably in his sticky seat 
and wished that he were back in the room where 
he could lie about on the bed in his underwear. 
Finally the last cap and gown was seated again 
and the Commencement had ended in a perspiring 
anti-climax. 

Over a white-tiled counter in a restaurant, An¬ 
drews ate a belated lunch. He went up to his 
rooming house and paid Mrs. Weeks the three 
dollars and forty-five cents he owed her for June, 
then spent the rest of the afternoon in packing his 
books for shipment. 

Fraternity Row was almost silent as he passed 
on the way to the train that evening. Only a few 
seniors and post graduates were there to keep 
lights in the first floor windows; the second story 
windows were dark with drawn shades. The 
street was gloomy. Andrews shifted his heavy 
suitcase to the other hand. Four years of it! 
Well, he was going now where you didn’t get by 
on drag and where what you really were counted 
for something. 

At the railway station he avoided the meeting 
of an Engineering student he knew. He checked 
his suitcase, bought a magazine and a ticket, and 
seated himself in the crowded waiting room. 

THE END [283 


























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